Guatemala / Blue Ayarza
Not only is this coffee rich and flavorful, but it also directly benefits the communities and particularly the children of the families that produce this coffee through social programs at origin including kindergartens and a rural health clinic.
Roast Level: Dark
Tasting Notes: Pomegranate, Molasses, Red Grape
Learn More About This Coffee
Varieties: Bourbon, Catuai, Pache, Anacafe 14
Growing Altitude: 1,400 - 2,000 masl
Processing Method: Natural
The region of Ayarza is a special one, landmarked by the drastic landscape and cold blue water from the Laguna de Ayarza and Laguna Azul. The lake was formed by two massive volcanos that collapsed and formed a large crater. The legends surrounding this lake are numerous like the one that says the bottom has never been found. There is a large white rock that resembles a petrified woman who didn’t follow the orders of Jesus. In short, there are simply too many good stories about Ayarza to do it justice!
Covoya Guatemala always knew the region had massive potential to produce specialty coffee, but the cups that they found were usually solid but unsurprising. Four years ago they rented a wet mill at 1,500 meters on a Rainforest Alliance certified farm. The quality coming from the washed coffee was much better than expected, and next they tried the honey and maceration processes.
For natural-processed coffees under the Blue Ayarza mark, the best cherries from small holders in the region deliver to Covoya's mill, often in their own pickup trucks. Cherry is sent to Amatitilan for drying, the coffee starts for 10 days on the patio. To finish the coffee is mechanically dried for 5-10 hours.
Benefiting Covoya Guatemala's Coffee Kindergartens & Health Clinic
Your purchase of this coffee directly benefits the communities and particularly the children of the families that produce this coffee through social programs funded by an additional premium we pay on this particular coffee.In the Ayarza and Huehuetenango regions of Guatemala, coffee harvesting season coincides with the children's school vacation. For many families in the coffee regions, they are stuck with a dilemma: on one hand, the parents need the income from picking coffee, and on the other, there are limited options for childcare while they work. As the first to bring the Child Labor Monitoring & Remediation System (CLMRS) program to the coffee sector in Guatemala, OFI/Covoya created Coffee Kindergartens and Coffee Camps to support these working families. The communities that receive the Coffee Kindergartens are determined by risks assessments done in the field in partnership with their on-the-ground social workers. Coffee Kindergartens are set up in public schools where children learn, get a meal, and play with other children under the care of competent teachers for 35 school days during peak harvest.
The program started during the 2020-2021 harvest with four Coffee Kindergartens in different coffee growing regions in Huehuetenango and Ayarza/Santa Rosa. During the 2023-2024 harvest, there were 24 Coffee Kindergartens, with each receiving 20 children.
In the community of Manzanillo, Ayarza, the closest local public clinic is an hour plus walk. The Blue Ayarza coffee that we source from Covoya is processed at this mill. To support the local community, Covoya opened a rural health clinic in 2021. The Clinic is open two days a week for walk-ins. The other three days, the nurse is in the field training the surrounding communities on preventive health measures, best practices, and doing home visits. Through field visits, over 2,000 children have been screened for malnutrition, given supplements, and seen at follow up visits. The clinic is provided free of charge and basic medicines are also provided free of charge. In the first two years, the clinic also performed over 700 primary consults in the clinic, and made over 7,000 total visits/trainings/campaigns for common illnesses in the surrounding communities.
