Guatemala Wine-Flavored Natural Coffee Brands and Brewing Steps

New Oriente

Coffee here has been grown entirely by smallholder farmers since the 1950s. Today, virtually every household in the mountains operates as its own coffee-producing unit. New Oriente was once the most remote and poorest corner of Guatemala, but it now brims with vitality. Rainfall is abundant and skies are often cloudy, and although the region sits on an ancient volcanic zone, its soil developed from weathered metamorphic rock—rich in minerals and nutritionally balanced in a way that sets it apart from other volcanic coffee regions.

Brewing Instructions

To brew the Guatemala winey natural as pour-over: use 15g of coffee at a medium grind (setting 4 on the Fuji "ghost tooth" burr grinder), a V60 dripper, and water at 88-89°C. Start with a 30g bloom for 27 seconds, then pour up to 105g and pause. Once the water level in the bed drops to about half, resume pouring slowly until you reach 225g in total. Cut off the tail of the extraction. Water-to-coffee ratio is 1:15, with a total extraction time of 2:00.

Coffee Details

Guatemala Plan del Guayabo Estate

Country: Guatemala
Region: New Oriente
Estate: Cadilas Estate
Grade: SHB
Processing: Winey natural

The New Oriente Region

This region's defining features are fertile volcanic soil, low humidity, generous sunshine, and cool nights. The valley is ringed by three volcanoes—Agua, Fuego, and Acatenango. Volcanic ash from past eruptions has enriched the soil with minerals, while volcanic pumice helps retain moisture and offsets the drawback of relatively low rainfall. Dense shade trees shelter the trees from occasional frost.

Variety: Pacas
Altitude: 1675 meters
Flavor notes: Passion fruit, strawberry sandwich cookies, blueberry

Guatemala is a land of many volcanoes, and coffee grown in its volcanic soils yields distinctly characterful specialty coffees. The country's average altitude is high, which means coffee trees grow under wide day-night temperature swings. This demanding environment lets the cherries ripen slowly and fully on the branch, producing dense, hard beans with more complete, complex flavors.

Characteristics

A rich wet aroma, excellent balance, high sweetness, and an elegant, clean mouthfeel.

This newly arrived lot comes from Cadilas Estate, one of the premier estates in Guatemala's New Oriente region.

Winey Natural Flavor Profile

Pineapple, muskmelon, dried apricot, candied lemon peel, Bordeaux wine, and green tea with a whisper of cinnamon spice—an overall impression of deep sweetness and a full-bodied, smoky dried-plum aroma.

The Pacas Variety

Pacas is a natural Bourbon mutation, in the same family as Brazil's Catuaí and Costa Rica's Villa Sarchi. Like other widely planted Bourbon mutations, Pacas arose from a single-gene mutation, and that gives it one decisive advantage: the plants can be spaced more densely, which ultimately means higher yields per hectare.

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

By 1956, Francisco de Sola and Fernando's son, Fernando Alberto Pacas Trujillo, began studying the variety with the help of Professor William Cogwill in Florida. They compared San Ramón Bourbon against an "unknown" new variety—one that differed completely from Bourbon in both characteristics and plant form, with shorter internodal spacing and a larger fruiting area. They named it "Pacas."

Guatemala is one of Central America's most renowned producers of high-quality Arabica. The coffees from its five volcanic and three non-volcanic regions are all highly distinctive and enjoy an excellent international reputation.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If this winey natural intrigues you, the V60 dripper is the ideal tool for exploring fruit-forward coffees. Designed by Hario of Tokyo—founded in 1921 as a maker of heatproof laboratory glassware—the V60 takes its name from its distinctive 60° cone angle and "V" shape. That cone, combined with a single large outlet, forces water to flow through the center of the bed and gives the brewer full control of flow rate, extracting a more layered aroma and livelier acidity.

FrontStreet Ethiopia Huakui: one of the most successful star beans in recent specialty coffee. Its tropical fruit aromatics are striking—strawberry, passion fruit, jackfruit, even lychee—with pronounced sweetness, very little bitterness, and a silky, juice-like mouthfeel. Many drinkers call it "the coffee that tastes least like coffee," and it is a perfect match for the V60.

FrontStreet Yirgacheffe Guodingding: a washed lot from the Gedeo zone that many drinkers use as their gateway into specialty coffee. Expect vivid citrus, berry, and floral notes with a green-tea-like sweetness on the finish. Its acidity is soft and bright rather than sharp—gentle enough for beginners, yet expressive enough to reward a careful pour.