As a long-term partner of producer Rogelio Aguirre Jr. at El Limonar Farm, it is always a pleasure to welcome back exceptional lots such as this Pacamara lot, and to celebrate the meticulous care and dedication that goes into producing the remarkable coffees he continues to share with us year after year.

The story of El Limonar farm is one we’ve told many times over the years. The farm itself is situated in the mountainous area of Huehuetenango in the region of La Libertad, and was acquired by Rogelio Aguirre Gálvez in 1955. Back then, the farm was named El Injerto and was much larger. Later, Rogelio split the farm between his two sons, with the larger portion – given to the eldest son - remaining El Injerto, and the smaller farm being named ‘El Limonar’ and passing to the younger son – Rogelio Jr’s father. Today, Rogelio Jr, and his mother, Dona Rosa Maria Ovalle Mont run El Limonar farm.

El Limonar translates to, ‘the lemon grove’ and was named for the lemon trees spread across the farm. Geisha plants are not commonly produced in Guatemala - it was only in more recent years that Rogelio Jr decided to experiment with planting them on his farm.

Pacamara 

In 2016, when we visited the El Limonar farm, we have noticed the many Maragogype plants spread randomly around the farm. The Maragogype coffee plants are very easy to spot due to the height of the plant and their large leaves. We asked Rogelio if he could separate the Maragogype variety for us, and to our surprise, he did, and gave us a very small quantity of the beans, which tasted amazing and immediately became one of our best selling coffees. 

Rogelio was impressed by these results and decided to plant a small plot of land at the top of the farm with Pacamara variety, which is a cross between Maragogype and Pacas varieties. A few short years later, these Pacamara plants were yielding very high quality beans. He decided to push the experiment further and processed this new variety as a Natural, something he had not tried before. The results were amazing, winning him 17th place in Cup of Excellence Guatemala 2018! Most recent success of this coffee was just last year where this coffee placed 24th in CoE Guatemala. It is undeniably some of the best coffee that Guatemala has to offer.