Guadalupe Zajú Washed

Guadalupe Zajú is a 310-hectare coffee estate located in southern Chiapas (Soconusco region), on the Ruta del Café riding along the Guatemalan border. Founded in 1945 by Hamburg-born businessman Hans Asmus Luethje and his Peruvian wife, Guadalupe Zajú has always maintained a focus on efficiency and simplicity thus ensuring a long-lasting balance between the plantation and its surroundings. The owners celebrate its birth by preserving the same focus but adopting new but simple modern methods.

Since 2009, the entire farm has been renovated with new varieties such as Marsellesa and Star Maya after the havoc caused by the rust disease. The philosophy of the current owner – Eduardo ‘Teddy’ Esteve – is to produce coffee in a sustainable way by regularly investing in infrastructure for the benefit of farm workers (free schooling for children, canteen, small store, rest areas, etc.).

The coffee at Guadalupe Zaju is 100% shade-grown (the farm is Rainforest Alliance and C.A.F.E. Practices certified). Shade is well-managed and designed to be multi-purpose. Magnolia from Guatemala has been selected due to the fact that it is evergreen and has less leaf fall. Besides, it is a tree with a relatively high canopy.

All coffee on the farm is selectively hand-harvested and sorted once delivered to the farm’s mill. The coffee is pulped using an eco pulper, which separates ripe and underripe/underweight cherries. This pulper uses one cubic meter of water to process up to 20 tonnes which is a huge water saving. After pulping, coffee is sorted by density and delivered to separate tanks to ferment between 15 to 40 hours, depending on the weather at the time.

After fermentation, the mucilage is removed with water. Due to a very humid climate (sometimes 99% relative humidity), drying the parchment on patios can be challenging. That’s why almost all the export quality coffee is dried using mechanic dryers at a slow and constant temperature of 40 degrees until reaching a moisture content of 10-11%.