The Story and Legend of Guatemala's Finca El Injerto Pacamara Pandora Fatima

About the Pacamara Variety

Pacamara shot to worldwide fame through the Cup of Excellence (COE) in 2004, frequently taking championships in the 2-3 years that followed. The Pacamara produced by Guatemala's El Injerto estate set a record price of $80.2 per pound of green beans in 2008.

Where the variety and its name come from: it is a derived variety crossing the elephant bean Maragogype with Pacas, formed by taking the first four letters of each name. It is an outstanding variety developed in El Salvador. The beans are very large—similar to elephant beans—typically 21-22 screen size. In recent years it has been one of the standout varieties of Central and South America, and every country and farm hopes to find suitable land for cultivating it to produce exceptional coffee, much as Panama did with Geisha. Pacamara's hallmarks are bright fruit acidity and very pure, delicate sweetness.

Although Pacamara still looks much like its cousin, the elephant bean. Since 2006, COE has cupped Pacamara from 30 estates, some with genuinely superstar cups: Honduras' 2006 champion Santa Martha, El Salvador's 2007 third-place Cerro Negro (Black Mountain Estate), Guatemala's perennial COE champion El Injerto, and El Salvador's 2008 runner-up Pacamara estate are all excellent representatives. But because these are all award-winning lots, they command very high prices.

Pour-Over El Injerto

Use 15g of coffee at a medium grind size (setting 4 on a Fuji ghost-tooth burr grinder), a V60 dripper, and water at 88-89°C. Start with a 30g bloom for 27 seconds, then pour to 105g and pause. Once the water level drops to half, continue pouring slowly until you reach 225g total. Discard the tail end of the brew. Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, extraction time 2:00.

Guatemala Pacamara - Auction Lot Pandora Fatima-Pacamara PI07

The World's Coffee Estates - El Injerto

There are well over ten thousand coffee estates in the world, from producers of commodity coffee to farms growing rare and exotic varieties. Today we would like to introduce Guatemala's renowned top-tier estate, El Injerto.

Estate Introduction

El Injerto sits in the celebrated Huehuetenango highlands of Guatemala, where the Aguirre family has been growing coffee since 1900. The estate's name comes from a local fruit. El Injerto places special emphasis on ecological protection and organic cultivation, enforcing strict quality control to guarantee the quality of its green beans. Through the family's efforts, the estate has earned Rainforest Alliance certification and has been a frequent winner in international coffee competitions since 2002.

El Injerto (sometimes rendered as "Grafting Estate") ranks among Guatemala's very best—if it claimed second place, few would dare claim first. It has collected numerous world-class awards on its way to today's stature. More recently, the estate's owner elevated its profile even further, in a move reminiscent of Panama's famous La Esmeralda: El Injerto now holds its own global auctions, and the auction lots are remarkable. Notably, the 2012 first lot of the "Mocha variety" set a world record, selling at the astronomical price of $500.5 per pound—truly a star estate!

For its auctions, El Injerto created the "BEST El Injerto" series, selecting small lots of exceptional quality and distinctive varieties from within the estate. Experienced farmers hand-pick only ripe cherries, after which cuppers eliminate any batches that fail to meet the quality bar. Under selection criteria this strict, Pacamara lots account for only about 8% of the estate's total production.

Pacamara delivers full, rich, and complex flavors. Few varieties combine fruit acidity with distinct sweetness while offering such diverse notes: stone fruits, vanilla, tropical fruit, chocolate, and spice-laced sweetness.

Manufacturer: FrontStreet Coffee
Shelf Life: 90 days
Net Weight: 100g
Packaging: Bulk
Organic: No
Coffee Bean State: Roasted coffee beans
Contains Sugar: Sugar-free
Origin: Guatemala
Roast Level: Medium roast

Guatemala La Libertad, Huehuetenango El Injerto Pandora de Fatima

Country: Guatemala

Grade: SHB

Estate: El Injerto Estate

Roast Level: Medium roast

Processing Method: Washed

Variety: Pacamara

Batch: Auction lot Pandora Fatima EI07

Flavor: Chestnut, plum, chocolate

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

While El Injerto's Pacamara is an auction-only treasure, FrontStreet Coffee recommends two ways to experience Geisha—the variety that made estate-level micro-lot auctions famous in the first place.

FrontStreet Esmeralda Red Label Geisha (Esmeralda Special) — grown at 1600-1800 meters in Panama, cupping above 90 points, with every batch drawn from a single plot and carrying its own unique lot number (FrontStreet's lot comes from the Harramuyo plot) so buyers can choose by subtle flavor differences. Expect the classic Panamanian Geisha profile: pronounced orange-blossom honeyed notes, fragrant florals with rich, juicy fruit acidity, and a tea-like sweet finish. FrontStreet Esmeralda Green Label Geisha (Private Collection) blends lots from multiple high-altitude plots to express the estate's signature Geisha character at a more accessible price—an excellent value.

FrontStreet Boquete Geisha — the ideal entry point. This entry-level Panamanian Geisha lets you taste authentic orange-blossom honeyed sweetness, an oolong-tea texture with delicate fruit acidity, and distinct layering at a friendly price. For brewing, FrontStreet suggests a medium-light roast-friendly approach: grind to the coarseness of fine granulated sugar (about 78% pass through a #20 sieve), use water at 91°C, 15g of coffee with a V60 at a 1:16 ratio, in three pours—30g to bloom for 30 seconds, then to 125g, and finally to 225g once the bed drains halfway, for a total extraction of roughly 2:10-2:20.