Xalum, Guatemala

This is the Xalum General Lot: the bulk of the main harvest. It's our go-to for a deep, chocolaty coffee. We have been working with Christian Starry & his family, who run El Xalum, for the past 14 years; the farm is located near Lake Amatitlán, and the wet mill (pictured above) directly overlooks the lake.

When we first started working together in 2011, they were just coming back from being hit hard by a series of setbacks: a hurricane, the Coffee Leaf Rust epidemic, the decline in pollinator populations, and more. Since then, tremendous effort on the part of the Starry family has led to a new chapter being written for the family farm.