Guatemala COE Top 3 Estate for 3 Consecutive Years: Finca El Morito Pache Natural Coffee Brewing Guide

FrontStreet Coffee wants to introduce a natural-process coffee made from a variety that may be unfamiliar to many. The farm sits in a newer growing region of Guatemala, yet it has placed in the COE competition's top three three years running — proof of this coffee's exceptional quality. The variety is called Pache, a natural mutation of Typica. Natural processing is rare in Guatemala, and the variety carries Typica's excellent flavor and mouthfeel: fruit-like sweetness and acidity, the rich body of nuts, and caramel sweetness, all wrapped into a balanced cup.

Guatemala

Guatemala sits in Central America, blessed with a unique geographic position bridging North and South America. Facing the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, its climate is relatively humid and tropical, making it one of the world's important coffee regions. The Guatemalan coffee belt lies above 1500 meters, between 14°-16° north latitude — ideal conditions for growing extremely hard beans. The country has seven major producing regions, of which Nuevo Oriente is the youngest. It receives abundant rainfall and belongs to the same rainforest zone as Cobán, though slightly less humid and rainy. This was once the poorest region in Guatemala — until the 1980s, when surging demand for specialty coffee led the mountain communities to embrace coffee cultivation wholeheartedly, bringing the area back to vibrant life.

Guatemalan Varieties

Guatemala's varieties are mainly Bourbon, Typica, Catuai, and Caturra. Today FrontStreet Coffee introduces a Typica mutation: Pache. Pache plants are smaller, allowing denser planting and higher yields. It is suited to altitudes above 1200 meters and regions with annual rainfall below 2,500 millimeters. The variety was discovered in 1949 at the Brito farm in Santa Cruz Naranjo, Guatemala.

Finca El Morito — the "Little Blueberry" Farm

Finca El Morito, the "Little Blueberry Farm," is a Guatemalan COE competition farm that has placed in the top three three years running (2013: 2nd, 2014: 3rd, 2015: 2nd; 2017: 4th, 2018: 3rd), and it ranks among the highest-altitude and most exceptional farms in all of Guatemala. The owner manages the operation professionally, pushing coffee cultivation to 2300 meters and testing the limits of Arabica growing, where higher altitude means better flavor. In recent years the farm has shown outstanding strength across competitions.

Because the estate sits at such extreme altitude, you must pass through two cloud layers to reach it. The cold climate nurtures remarkably resilient fruit and exceptional coffee flavors. The owner plants different varieties in different sections of the farm, each with slightly different flavors and textures. The Pache grown here brings out cocoa notes and a rich body, and it is a rare natural-process lot from Guatemala — an intense black cherry and blueberry coffee, well worth your attention.

FrontStreet Coffee Roasting Recommendations

Machine: Yangjia 800N semi-direct-fire drum roaster

Because this Pache natural has excellent bean quality with rich fruit flavors even in green form, FrontStreet Coffee's roaster chose a light roast to showcase them. Preheat the drum to 170°C before charging, set the damper to 3, and turn on the heat after 30 seconds, adjusting the flame to 140 with the damper unchanged. The turning point comes back to 103.4°C at 1'32". At 140°C, keep the flame and open the damper to 4. The beans turn yellow at 5 minutes — the grassy aroma disappears as they enter the drying phase. Reduce the flame to 120, keeping the damper at 4. At 176°C, lower the flame to 100 with the damper unchanged. Drying completes at 8'30", when wrinkles and black spots appear on the bean surface and the toasted-bread aroma turns into true coffee aroma — the prelude to first crack. Listen closely for it. First crack begins at 9'20"; open the damper fully to 5 and reduce the flame to 70. Development time after first crack is 1'30", dropping at 195.4°C.

FrontStreet Coffee's Cupping Report

Guatemala Finca El Morito Pache

Region: Nuevo Oriente

Farm: Finca El Morito (Little Blueberry Farm)

Altitude: 1500-2500 meters

Variety: Pache

Awards: Guatemala COE top-three farm for 3 consecutive years (2013: 2nd, 2014: 3rd, 2015: 2nd; 2017: 4th; 2018: 3rd)

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Recommendations

Filter: Hario V60 | Water Temperature: 90°C | Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15 | Grind Size: BG#6s

FrontStreet Coffee's method for this Guatemalan Pache: bloom with 30g of water for 30 seconds, pour to 125g in stages, and once the water level drops and the coffee bed is about to be exposed, continue pouring to 225g and stop. When the bed is about to surface again, remove the filter cup (timing from the start of the bloom). Total extraction time: two minutes.

Flavor Description

Right off the grinder you catch rich nutty and spice aromas with a faint fermented-berry edge. Hot, the cup is quite balanced, carrying fermented fruit notes, genmaicha tea, and nutty almond flavors. As it cools, citrus, berry, and ripe-fruit sweetness and acidity emerge, with a persistent sugarcane finish. Overall: sweet, balanced, and quietly complex.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Sun-drying is the oldest coffee processing method and still the most widely used: ripe cherries are laid out whole in the sun until they reach target moisture, then hulled. Because the fruit dries intact around the seed, naturals carry higher body and richer mature-fruit tones. The trade-off is weather — a natural needs roughly 27 to 30 consecutive sunny days, which is why Ethiopia, with its high altitude, dry climate, and scarce water, has become naturals' heartland, drying cherries flat on raised beds away from insects, dust, and bacteria.

If you love this El Morito natural's fermented fruit and black-cherry depth, FrontStreet Coffee suggests exploring its Ethiopian counterparts. The Yirgacheffe Red Cherry natural is built from fully ripe, all-red cherries dried on raised beds and turned regularly for even drying; after a medium-light roast it offers elegant florals, bright acidity, pronounced tropical fruit, and a full, sweet fermentation. The Ethiopia Huakui natural, from Sidamo's exceptional high-altitude terroir, layers soft fermentation, florals, citrus, and mango over thick honeyed sweetness and cocoa, with a long, spice-tinged finish.

Prefer the cleaner end of the dried-fruit spectrum? The FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan sun-dried Typica balances nutty tones with berry-like acidity, dried apricot, and brown sugar, with a touch of tea — a reminder that naturals reward patience and careful bed management, exactly the discipline that made this Guatemalan Pache a three-time COE podium coffee.