Guatemala El Panal

Producer Jorge Mendez
Farm El Panal
Municipality San Pedro Necta
Department Huehuetenango
Region Huehuetenango

Sun Exposure Intermixed shade and sun on steep slopes
Farm Size 4.45 hectares; El Panal, Gorrioncillo and El Limonar
Altitude 1600masl
Latitude 15.516576
Longitude -91.791268

Variety Bourbon, Caturra, Pache
Process Washed
Fermentation Submerged
Drying Dried in partial sun to 11.5%

Harvest Year 2023

Flavor Milk Chocolate, Raspberry, Honey, White Grape, Red Apple, Citrus
Descriptors Sweet and lingering, crisp

About this coffee Super excited to have Jorge Mendez’s coffee back at Idle Hands for the THIRD year in a row now.

Jorge’s career in coffee began as a picker at coffee farms around the San Pedro Necta municipality of Huehuetenango before he and his wife, Ana Alisia Aguilar Ramos, saved enough money to buy some land along the PanAmerican Highway. Not long after acquiring this first piece of land Jorge and Ana sold their original property and moved back into the mountains to Agua Dulce. Along with learning the ropes in coffee; value, trading and qualities, Jorge learnt and arguably perfected sustainability practices introducing bees to the farms to assist in pollination and including this in his list of offerings.

The coffee produced by Jorge is done so in a traditional manner, and with expertise. Coffee is harvested, floated (cleaned and sorted) before pulping and then placed into fermentation tanks overnight and then finally washed clean and sent to the drying patios to dry in partial sun, where shade cloth is used to keep a more stable temperature, until 11.5%.

This coffee is sourced and imported by our pals at Onyx Coffee Importers, a producer-up founded and operated supply chain by Edwin Martinez. Edwin is a third generation coffee producer from Guatemala and began importing his coffee to North America in 2009. He’s successfully and proudly developed Onyx into a collaborative and community driven company that brings us coffee from folks like Jorge Mendez and Arcenio Castillo, and we’re proud to know and work with them.