Guatemala Pacamara

This is the extremely rare Pacamara varietal from Guatemala, located in my favorite region: Huehetenango.  

Pacamara is a cross between the enormous "elephant bean" Maragogype and Pacas which is within the Bourbon family. Both varietals are low-yielding and harder to grow than modern hybrids, so Pacamara is a rarely grown bean. Pacamara's magic was discovered in the early 1990's after 30+ years of experiments by the El Salvadorian Institute of Coffee Research.  The bean is so large that it is too big for sorting by coffee screens.  Instead of being a 16/17, or 17/18, these would be screened as a 20/21 if such a screen existed.  

It is amazing coffee -- but instead of chocolate or caramel undertones, the prominent flavor is guava! Fruity and floral with grapefruit, dark chocolate in the background. Sweet and delicious.  So with most Huehuetenango Guatemala coffees, the sweet spot tends to be about 10 seconds into the 2nd cracks, but with this one, we stop the roast about 10 seconds before the 2nd cracks begin (so look at your notes on roasting Guatemala and back it off about 20 seconds or 4 degrees. It still tastes good in the 2nd cracks, but you lose some of the fruity flavor. It tastes good lighter as well, but becomes really tart instead of sweet. Pretty easy to roast! 

US Arrival: 9/2018