Guatemala - Familia Primavera [24/25]

Brew Guide:

Best Brewed with: Filter, would be fine on 'spro with rest.

Light Roast Influence: A smidge longer in the roaster than our typical punchy roasts, but keeping the acidity intact that we previously slightly roasted out for past crop years

Best Rested: 2-3 weeks

Filter: 60g/L, 96°C when fresh but when well rested you can go down to 92-93°C

Espresso: 18g/45g/26-30s. Can pull tighter ratios if it pleases you

We’re tasting: Sweet orchard fruit aromatics (apple, pear, cherry) alongside caramel. In the cup, hazelnut praline, raisin sweetness, alongside syrup poached pear & buttery fudge. As it cools some black tea notes, milk chocolate and red apple come out. A nice sweet comfort coffee

Traceability

The Story

Primavera Coffee was founded in 2013 by Nadine Rasch, a fourth-generation coffee producer whose family has been involved in Guatemalan coffee since 1880. The company now works with over 250 producers across Guatemala, operating through sister company La Central de Café which handles milling and export operations. 

The 2025 crop presented particular market challenges. Guatemala's harvest timing, running from November to April, coincided with unprecedented coffee market volatility. During the Guatemalan harvest period, arabica futures reached 27-year highs, climbing over 70% in 2024 to hit US $4.41/lb in February 2025. Exporters like Primavera, purchasing parchment from producers at farm gate prices during this peak period, were committed to fixed prices reflecting then-current market conditions. 

This timing created a fundamental mismatch between purchase and sale periods. Primavera's farm gate commitments to the contributing producers were made during market peaks, and the market has relaxed a little since then as this year's Brazil harvest looks to be on track without major disruption.
We found the price point of this year's Familia Primavera crop to sit too high to go in the blend or run as a house filter, but one of the reason's we chose this coffee the last two years was its versatility; the inherent layers of quality and ability to be taken in different routes with the roasting. We made the choice that rather than walk away at that price point, we'll run it as a more affordable single origin and roast it a smidge lighter - to highlight that exact point.

Famila Primavera:
With this lot, our export/import partner Primavera builds a larger volume field blend from outturns produced from smallholder farmers in the San Antonio Huista municipality of Huehuetenango. These lots are either too small to represent reasonable microlot or bulk lot volume on their own, or not quite hitting the quality mark for a single origin release. 

Without a clear route to the speciality market, these lots may have been sold for high commercial prices. But by creating a larger field blend with careful selection of components, Primavera are able to craft an 84-85pt lot that commands a speciality price and value return to the producer, gains access to multiple markets that Primavera exports to, and maintains speciality level traceability.