This year I went to Guatemala to participate in the annual Cup of Excellence that was held at Anacafe in Guatemala city. This was great fun and we tasted loads of tasty coffee, it’s always interesting to taste so many coffees from the same country side by side. After the competition I had the chance to go to Antigua with our friend Marta Dalton from Coffee Bird and visit her family farm, a farm that we have been buying from for a couple of years now – Finca Filadelfia. Finca Filidefia is just a little north of Antigua and takes about 10 minutes to drive there from Antigua.
Warning – Short post, I took most of these photos on the back of a horse and hence this prevented me from taking too many notes!
Finca Filadelfia is owned by the Dalton family and has been in the family for generations. Great great grandfather Manuel Matheu was one of the first coffee farmers in Antigua, and started farming on the estate 148 years ago. Manuel Matheu is the man in the image in this picture.
After a trip to London, Manuel Matheu was commissioned by the President to show small farmers in the area how to grow coffee on their land. This passion for coffee has been passed down 6 generations. Francis Dalton with his siblings took over running the farm from their mother Elisa, who ran it until she was 94 years old! Today Francis runs the farm with his brother Bobby and sisters Marjorie and Jean.
More of our coffee next to sorting tables where zero defect coffee like ours is sorted to assure it’s free from defects. That’s our future coffee in the back ground waiting for us to approve the pre-shipment samples before it’s loaded into a container to be shipped.
Bosques de san Francisco is on the left of the driveway and the farm on the right is Monte Maria, which last year was almost completely wiped out by rust, all the trees had to be cut down to ensure the rust didn’t spread. This year we will have all the coffee this farm produced which is 5 bags in total!
Since I came back, our samples were approved and the container has been loaded up ready for shipping. I’m excited to taste the coffee from this farm and the other farms around Guatemala that Coffee Bird have sourced for us.
