Custos de financiamento vigoram até que o café seja liberado.
A história do café
Farm: Finca San Jorge Producer: Tulio Lemus and Silvia Lechuga Farm manager: Barsen Lemus Location: Palencia town, Guatemala department, near Cerro Tomáz Tepeque and bordering Antigua, Amatitlán and Jalapa Farm size: 45 hectares Altitude: 1450 - 1650 m Average yearly rainfall: 1200 ml Average temperatures: 15C to 27C Harvest: January to March (this year it started in December) Processes: Washed, Honey and Natural Cultivated varietals: Caturra, Maracaturra, Marsellesa, Anacafé 14.
My family has 2 farms in the town of Palencia, in a mountainous area Northeast of Guatemala city. Palencia is not a well-known coffee producing area because a lot of our beans are sold via Antigua and end up branded as such. Some of the finest "Antigua" coffees come from Palencia. I manage the coffee plantations for my parents Tulio Lemus and Silvia Lechuga. We also grow vegetables, tomatoes, ornamental plants and we have a hydroponics project. My 4 siblings are involved with those.
The seed embryo
I find coffee fascinating and really enjoy studying agronomy. A few years back I started an irrigation project and planted rows of coffee trees on a flat plot in the farm looking to introduce some mechanized processes. We can't mechanize picking but could do it with running, for example. Small doses of irrigation allow for a more consistent nutrition, which improves the plants' health and resistance. Shade is extremely important for us. Not only it increases the biodiversity at the farm (we have many species of birds and insects) but it favours the development of the plants.
A healthy nursery: the deeper and more developed the roots the better
I learned recently about the Growing Degree-Day (GDD) of plants, a measure that relates temperatures to plant development and inform farmers when the plants will flower, produce fruit and finally reach maturation. GDD is based on the calculation of maximum temperature minus the minimum temperature of the day divided by two minus the base temperature of the plot. It helps us predict when to expect the harvest season in a more scientific and accurate way. For me, it also shows that it is not so much altitude that affects the maturation of coffee but the temperature and that having a shade-grown plantation is like being at higher altitudes!
