Guatemala Winey Natural Coffee Beans Market Analysis and Brand Recommendations

Product Information

Manufacturer: FrontStreet Coffee
Ingredients: In-house roasted
Shelf Life: 30 days
Net Weight: 227g
Packaging: Bulk
Taste Profile: Neutral
Coffee Bean State: Roasted beans
Contains Sugar: Sugar-free
Origin: Guatemala
Coffee Type: Other
Roast Level: Medium roast

Guatemala Plan del Guayabo Estate

Country: Guatemala
Region: New Oriente
Estate: Cardenas Estate
Grade: SHB
Processing Method: Wine Aroma Natural Process

New Oriente Region

Fertile volcanic soil, low humidity, abundant sunshine, and cool nights characterize this region. The valley is surrounded by three volcanoes: Agua, Fuego, and Acatenango. Volcanic ash from eruptions enriches the soil of the Antigua region with minerals. Volcanic pumice helps retain moisture, compensating for the low rainfall of the Antigua region, and dense tree shade protects against occasional frost damage.

Variety: Pacas
Altitude: 1675 meters
Flavor Notes: Passion fruit, strawberry cream sandwich, blueberry

Guatemala is a country of numerous volcanoes, and coffee grown in volcanic soil yields rich specialty coffee. Guatemala's average altitude is quite high, meaning the coffee trees grow with significant day-night temperature variations. This harsh, wide-swing environment lets the cherries mature longer and more slowly on the tree, producing hard beans with more complete, richer flavors.

Characteristics: Rich wet aroma, excellent balance, high sweetness, elegant and refined mouthfeel.

This newly arrived coffee comes from Cardenas Estate, a top-tier estate in Guatemala's New Oriente region.

Wine Aroma Natural Flavor Profile: Pineapple, cantaloupe, dried apricot, candied lemon peel, Bordeaux wine, green tea with cinnamon spice — overall rich in sweetness with a full-bodied smoky plum aroma.

Pacas Variety

Pacas is a natural mutation of Bourbon, similar to Brazil's Catuai and Costa Rica's Villa Sarchi. Like other widely cultivated Bourbon mutations, Pacas is a new variety formed by single-gene mutation, which gives it a crucial characteristic: plants can be planted more densely, ultimately producing higher yields per unit area.

Pacas was first discovered in 1949 by the Pacas family in the Santa Ana region of El Salvador. Fernando Alberto Pacas Figueroa noticed some plants with a different morphology on the family's Finca San Rafael estate. He began collecting seeds and conducting selection breeding, later developing about 3/4 hectare of a Pacas "pioneer nursery."

By 1956, Francisco de Sola and Fernando's son, Fernando Alberto Pacas Trujillo, began researching the Pacas variety with the help of Florida professor William Cogwill. They compared San Ramon Bourbon with an "unknown" new variety, and this unknown variety showed completely different characteristics. Its plant morphology differed from Bourbon, with shorter internodal spacing and larger fruiting areas. They finally named the variety "Pacas."

Guatemala is a renowned high-quality Arabica-producing country in Central America. Coffee from its five volcanic regions and three non-volcanic regions is very distinctive and enjoys an excellent reputation on the international market.

New Oriente® Region

Coffee in this region has been grown entirely by small farmers since the 1950s. Today, every farmer in the mountainous area is a coffee production unit. The region was once Guatemala's most remote and poorest area, but now shows vibrant vitality. With abundant rainfall and cloudy weather, New Oriente was an ancient volcanic region whose soil evolved from volcanic metamorphic rock, rich in minerals and nutritionally balanced — different from other volcanic coffee regions.

Brewing Instructions

For pour-over Guatemala Wine Aroma Natural, use 15g of coffee, a medium grind (Fuji ghost-tooth grinder #4), a V60 dripper, and water at 88-89°C. First pour 30g of water for a 27-second bloom, then pour to 105g and stop. Wait until the water level drops to half before pouring again. Slowly pour until reaching 225g, avoiding the tail section. Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, extraction time 2:00.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Natural processing is the oldest and still the most widely used coffee method: ripe cherries are dried whole in the sun until the moisture target is reached, and because the fruit pulp stays on the bean throughout drying, the cup gains extra body and rich, mature-fruit tones. FrontStreet Yirgacheffe sun-dried Red Cherry is a textbook example — only fully ripe, all-red cherries are selected and spread on raised beds, turned regularly to prevent uneven drying, and dried for roughly three to five weeks. At a medium-light roast it keeps its elegant florals and bright acidity while adding pronounced tropical fruit, a full fermentation and deep sweetness.

For an even more flamboyant fruit bomb, FrontStreet Huakui — grown at extreme altitude on fertile soil — shows light fermentation notes, florals, citrus and mango, with honeyed sweetness, a cocoa undertone and a hint of spice, a thick body and a long finish. And for the innovative edge of modern processing, FrontStreet Colombia Sidra goes through double anaerobic fermentation before sun-drying, emerging with passion fruit, apricot, dried fruit and grape complexity plus an almond-like finish.

If you want a softer, more balanced natural, FrontStreet's 2013 Yunnan sun-dried Typica is grown on FrontStreet's own estate; because Yunnan has clear rainy and dry seasons, the harvest months are sunnier, so the cherries are dried in the sun, giving a nutty profile with balanced sweet-and-sour, more sweetness than a typical washed coffee, berry acidity and notes of dried apricot, brown sugar and light tea. For a stable, easy-drinking natural, FrontStreet Brazil Queen Estate dries its cherries on raised beds and gently machine-finishes them for a low moisture content, giving sugarcane sweetness, black tea, a soft fruit sweetness, obvious nut flavor and a clean, bright finish.