Episode 349 on Monday the 20th of July, 2015. Guatemala El Libano Washed Caturra.

El Libano is located in the traditional Guatemalan coffee region of Chimaltenango and is 21 hectares in size with 17.5 of them set aside for coffee production. Its owner is Herbert Estuardo Perez Liquidano, a third generation coffee producer on this farm.

Originally this farm was called La Pampa and was purchased by Mr Prudencio Perez Rosales in 1915. When he unfortunately passed away his daughters inherited the farm and divided it equally into three properties called La Pampa, San Juan and El Libano.  Herbert purchased El Libano in 1992.

In the early days of El Libano (or La Pampa I guess I should say) coffee was commercialized in cherry form with other farms and/or buyers who took it to local wet mills for the post harvest process. When coffee production at the farm increased, between 1958 and 1960, a wet mill was built on a lower part of the farm and drying fields were built in the higher parts. At that time, coffee was taken by workers on mules from the pulping area to the drying fields, down a narrow road, which as I'm sure you can imagine made work rather difficult. Later, in 1970, this was extended and thanks to increasing coffee sales they were able to buy a vehicle to let the mules get some rest.

Since then as I'm sure you guessed there have been many changes to the farm...they improved the quality of what they could produce via modernisation of the wet mill, the pulping area and in the drying process. In the drying area, they have increased the drying patios and added a guardiola dryer, which has the capacity of processing 40 quintales (4 kilos) of coffee. Besides producing delicious coffee El Libano also plays a really important role for the local people, the worked of the farm have been provided with equipped houses to live on the farm with their families and they've also built not just 1 but 2 modern swimming pools for workers and their families!

The farm sits at 1,350 metres above sea level and has a mixture of Typica, Catuaí, Caturra and Geisha, although this lot is just Caturra. It's our second year of working with this farm after working with them for the very first time last year, back then I said I had high hopes for the future and guess what, I was right 

In the cup you can expect to find a rather large Granny Smith green apple! It’s a super sweet superclean cup that finishes with a delicious aftertaste of mango.

• Country: Guatemala
• Department: Chimaltenango
• Municipality: Acatenango
• Nearest Village: La Pampa
• Farm Name: El Libano
• Farmer: Herbert Estuardo Pérez Liquidano
• Altitude: 1,350 m.a.s.l.
• Process: Washed
• Drying: Sun dried
• Farm Size: 21 Hectares
• Coffee growing area: 17.5 Hectares
• Varietal: Caturra