Alter Ego

The Chimaltenango region sits northwest of Antigua and Guatemala City. It is mainly an indigenous population (Kaqchikel dialect). This region gathers mainly small producers who provide cherry to Bella Vista (in Antigua), where the coffee is then wet milled. These small producers typically have a hard time finding a good home for their coffees and this is where Bella Vista comes in. They are able to blend the coffees from many small producers into a larger quantity that is more significant. Each producer on their own is too small to sell their annual coffee production.

These tiny coffee farms have the benefit of young and well kept plantations with varieties that adapt well to their conditions and are known for producing excellent and reliable quality. The farms sit at enviable elevations ranging from 1550m to 1850m - the result is very tasty coffee!

Coffee in Chimaltenango started in the late 1990s so it’s a very new growing region. Bella Vista gets the coffee cherry through two reps who go to the same villages yearly and bring cherry from the small holders of that village back to Antigua. These reps are very important in the chain as they calibrate day to day quality with the small producers and ensure that Bella Vista’s high expectations of picking quality are being met.

We have been buying coffees from these small producers since 2021 and have been very happy with the resulting quality, year after year.