Finca San Cayetano
In the Santa Rosa region, nestled in the southern reaches of Guatemala, is Finca San Cayetano. The farm is in its third generation of coffee growers, and it run by Natchez S.A. In addition to coffee, Finca San Cayetano also grows bananas and harvests honey from beehives. The farm received its name from a curious tradition that links the people and the Catholic saints with the same name; the ancient and original owner Cayetano Valladares was a devout religious person but a passionate coffee grower too.
- Farm Finca San Cayetano
- Varietal Anacafe 14, Caturra, Obata
- Process Fully washed
- Altitude 1,250 metres above sea level
- Town / City Pueblo Nuevo Viñas
- Region Santa Rosa
- Owner Natchez S.A.
- Tasting Notes Honey, brown sugar, plum
- Farm Size 92.4 hectares
Coffee has helped fuel Guatemala’s economy for over a hundred years. Today, an estimated 125,000 coffee producers drive Guatemala’s coffee industry and coffee remains one of Guatemala’s principal export products, accounting for 40% of all agricultural export revenue.
It is most likely that Jesuit missionaries introduced coffee to Guatemala, and there are accounts of coffee being grown in the country as early as mid-18th century. Nonetheless, as in neighbouring El Salvador, coffee only became an important export crop for the country at the advent of synthetic dyes and industrialisation of textiles – in the mid-19th century. Throughout the latter half of the 1800s, various government programs sought to promote coffee as a means to stimulate the economy, including a massive land privatisation program initiated by President Justo Rufino Barrias in 1871, which resulted in the creation of large coffee estates, many of which still produce some of Guatemala’s best coffees today.