Guatemala La Tormenta

Producer Ana Recinos and Roberto Cheves
Farm La Tormenta
Municipality Nearby San Agustín Acasaguastlán
Department El Progreso
Region Sierra de las Minas

Sun Exposure Forest and cloud forest
Farm Size 164ha; 10ha of coffee. 154ha of protected land
Altitude 1800masl
Latitude 15.06495
Longitude -89.94766

Variety Villa Sarchi
Process Washed
Fermentation 72 lactic fermentation
Drying Raised beds

Harvest Year 2025

Flavor Brown Sugar, Honey, Brown Spices, Cherry, Grape, Lemongrass, Lemonade
Descriptors Soft, Smooth, Delicate, Sweet

About this coffee Finca La Tormenta sits high in the mountains above the desert plains of eastern Guatemala’s El Progreso department, at the edge of the country’s largest cloud forest. The farm is breathtaking, a haven of biodiversity originally purchased by Roberto’s father. Roberto and Ana now live there for most of the year.

Ana Recinos is a fifth-generation coffee producer whose family has long produced coffee at Finca Nueva Armenia in Huehuetenango, and now her and Roberto are producing beautiful coffees together at La Tormenta. Ana has a noteworthy list of accolades; earlier this year, she was named Guatemala’s Producer of the Year, she is a certified Q Processing Professional and Q Lecturer, and she also won first place in Anacafé’s Flores de Café competition in both 2024 and 2025. In addition, she and Roberto placed sixth in the Cup of Excellence’s One of a Kind competition this year with their coffee from La Tormenta.

We were fortunate to visit them earlier this year, and along the drive there, you surprisingly pass through a desert at the base of Sierra de las Minas before climbing from roughly 250 to 300m straight up to 1,800m. From there you enter the cloud forest and reach the border of the Sierra de las Minas Biosphere Reserve, which is recognized by UNESCO for its ecological significance. La Tormenta takes its name from the predictable afternoon storms that arrive each day. Steady rainfall, cool temperatures and well-drained, healthy soils make this an ideal place for coffee cultivation.

Cherries are hand-picked from steep slopes and sorted at their small wet mill before processing. Pulped cherries undergo a controlled 72 hour fermentation, during which Ana increases the salinity of the water to encourage lactic acid bacteria and create a lactic fermentation. The coffee is then washed, dried under cover on raised beds, and stored on site before milling and export.