How Does Wine-Flavored Natural Process Guatemala Coffee Come About | Guatemala Coffee Bean Grade Classification

Fertile volcanic soil, relatively low humidity, abundant sunshine, and cool nights define this growing region. The valley sits ringed by three volcanoes: Agua, Fuego, and Acatenango. Ash from periodic eruptions enriches the soils of the Antigua region with minerals, while volcanic pumice helps the ground retain moisture and offsets the area's scarce rainfall. Dense tree canopy shields the coffee trees from occasional frost.

Coffee Details

Variety: Pacas

Altitude: 1,675 meters

Flavor Notes: Passion fruit, strawberry sandwich cookies, blueberry

Guatemala is a land of many volcanoes, and coffee grown in its volcanic soil yields coffees of remarkable character. The country's high average elevation brings wide day-night temperature swings. This demanding environment slows the ripening of the coffee cherries on the branch, producing dense beans with fuller, more complex flavors.

Cup Character: Rich wet aroma, good balance, high sweetness, and an elegant, delicate mouthfeel.

The freshly arrived lot comes from the outstanding Cardillas Estate in Guatemala's New Oriente region.

Wine-Aroma Natural Process Flavor: Pineapple, muskmelon, dried apricot, candied lemon peel, Bordeaux wine, and green tea laced with cinnamon spice—an overall profile filled with rich sweetness and a full-bodied smoky plum aroma.

Pacas is a natural mutation of Bourbon, in the same family as Caturra of Brazil and Villa Sarchi of Costa Rica. Like other widely planted Bourbon mutations, Pacas resulted from a single-gene mutation, and that mutation gives it one crucial trait: the plants can be grown at higher density, which ultimately means higher yields per hectare.

Pacas was first noticed in 1949 by the Pacas family in the Santa Ana region of El Salvador. Fernando Alberto Pacas Figueroa spotted plants with an unusual morphology on the family's Finca San Rafael estate and began collecting seeds and selecting for cultivation, eventually developing roughly 3/4 hectare of Pacas "pioneer nursery."

By 1956, Francisco de Sola and Fernando's son, Fernando Alberto Pacas Trujillo, had begun studying the variety with the help of Professor William Cogwill of Florida. They compared San Ramon Bourbon against the "unknown" new variety, which proved entirely distinct: its plant morphology differed from Bourbon, with shorter internodal spacing and a larger fruiting zone. They named the variety "Pacas."

Guatemala is a renowned Central American producer of high-quality Arabica coffee. Coffees from its five volcanic regions and three non-volcanic regions are highly distinctive and enjoy an excellent reputation in international markets.

New Oriente Region

Coffee here has been grown entirely by smallholder farmers since the 1950s. Today, every farm in these mountains is a coffee-producing unit of its own. New Oriente was once Guatemala's most remote and poorest area, but it now brims with vitality. Rain is abundant and the weather frequently cloudy. The region sits on an ancient volcanic range, and its soils evolved from metamorphosed volcanic rock, giving them a mineral richness and nutritional balance that sets them apart from other volcanic coffee regions.

Brewing Guide

For a hand-poured Guatemala wine-aroma natural process: use 15 g of coffee ground to medium (grind setting 4 on a Fuji ghost-tooth burr grinder), a V60 dripper, and water at 88-89°C. Start with a 30 g pour and bloom for 27 seconds, then pour up to 105 g and stop. Once the water level drops to half the bed, continue pouring slowly until you reach 225 g. Cut off the tail of the drawdown. Use a 1:15 water-to-coffee ratio with a total extraction time of 2:00.

Guatemala Plan del Guayabo Estate

Country: Guatemala

Region: New Oriente

Estate: Cardillas Estate

Grade: SHB

Processing Method: Wine-aroma natural process

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

FrontStreet Brazil Cerrado Red Bourbon

If you simply want a taste of what Brazil has to offer, FrontStreet's pulped-natural Cerrado is a classic single-origin Brazilian coffee. Cerrado is one of Brazil's best-known coffee regions, celebrated for its high-quality beans. This FrontStreet lot is the Red Bourbon variety, so common across South America. Roasted to medium, it opens with rich aromas of creamy peanut, toasted bread, caramel, and hazelnut. The cup is round and smooth—not sour, with only a light bitter edge—and works beautifully not just as a pour-over but also through a moka pot, as an espresso SOE, or in a siphon or French press.

FrontStreet Brazil Fazenda Rainha (Queen Estate) Yellow Bourbon

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FrontStreet Espresso Blend Series

Low acidity, a balanced cup, and an approachable price have made Brazilian coffee a first choice for many premium espresso blends. FrontStreet's crema-rich Classic Blend, the nut-forward Specialty Blend, the well-balanced Black Cocoa Blend favored by many baristas, and FrontStreet Coffee's Commercial Blend designed for cafés all contain Brazilian beans. Beyond contributing chocolate and cream aromatics, the Brazil component lends a gentle sweetness and acidity with a soft bitterness, and its steady balance helps keep espresso extraction consistent.