El Volcancito
Impressions: dark chocolate, butter, almonds, candied orange
Roast Degree: medium-dark (4/5)
Country: Guatemala
Location: El Volcancito, Santa Rosa
Producers: Amildo Pineda, Rigoberto Garcia, Rommel Urias and Miguel Angel Quinteros.
Varieties: Mixed, mostly Pache San Ramon
Process: Washed
Import Partner: Semilla
El Volcancito is a small Xinka community that is almost entirely reliant on coffee to earn a living. They are relatively new to the specialty coffee sector, starting to export internationally in 2022. This is also when we started to use this lot as our staple and biggest volume buy every year.
Instead of chasing cup scores or cheaper prices, we are committed to buy as much as we can from this group every harvest with the end goal being able to buy all they have to offer. By buying this coffee (and any other coffees or blends from the region) you help us get closer to that goal.
You can also find the El Volcancito blend in our Chocolate Berry Blend as well as in our half caf option, The Mindful Blend.
Many growers in the region still sell their coffee cherries locally for a fraction of what they could get from the specialty sector. Every harvest, Semilla tries to gather momentum from buyers so they can incorporate more producers to their network and give them crucial access to a more lucrative market.
One of they key reason for the group's success has been how they organized locally to now process their own cherries in communal beneficios. Each producer contributing to that lots is a true smallholder farmers, producing between 5 and 15 bags of exportable coffees annually. Coming together to build a high quality community lot makes rpocessing and exporting more efficient, leaving more money in their pockets as opposed to processing everything individually.
This is a solid washed coffee that we roasted to go well with any brew method, with or without milk, and it's designed for a bolder taste profile.
As a filter, the dark chocolate and nuttiness shine. The cooked pear notes gives the coffee such a nice mouthfeel, and the aftertaste feels like nougat and vanilla.
As an espresso, it’s all about texture and the buttery side of this coffee. If you like your espresso strong and round, but smooth at the same time, this is the one! The orange marmalade sweetness makes this coffee incredibly balanced.
Steam some milk and this becomes a choco milk bomb!
| Method | Dose | Ratio | Time |
| Espresso | 18 g | 2:1 | 24-30 sec |
| Espresso with milk | 18g | 1.9:1 | 30-34 sec |
| Americano | 18 g | 2.1:1 | 30-35 sec |
|
V60/Origami |
23 g | 15:1 | 2:45-3:15 min |
|
Chemex & Batch Brew |
40-60 g | 15:1 | 4:30-5:00 min |
|
French Press |
18-25 g | 14.5:1 | 4:00 min steep time |
Producers: Amildo Pineda, Rigoberto Garcia, Rommel Urias and Miguel Angel Quinteros.
Exporter: Industrias Noviembre
Importer: Semilla
Price we paid Semilla: 18.65CAD/kg
FOB price: 14.05CAD/kg
Farmgate price: 2550 Quetzal/quintal 1 quintal being around 100kg of parchment (parchment means the green bean is still not exposed)
National price: 1800 Quetzal - Semilla paid ～40% above market price
Some words from Semilla on the work they do in Guatemala when it comes to community lots:
''Blends like this serve a similar purpose across Semilla’s sourcing programs throughout Latin America. They allow for a slightly lower-quality ceiling on individual lots while still offering a high price. In Guatemala, we do not set prices based on quality; instead, differentiation is linked to the producers' input costs. This means that producers, like those in El Volcancito who have invested time and resources into post-harvest processing, receive higher prices that reflect their investment. In this case, the blend was created because the coffees were solid but not good enough to stand alone as microlots. When blended, the collective quality surpasses the sum of its parts.''