Green Guatemalan Red de Mujeres washed coffee from Huehuetenango

Green Guatemalan Red de Mujeres, or ‘network of women’ a fully washed coffee from Huehuetenango via Zuka.

Guatemalan Coffee History

Initially indigo and cochineal were the primary crop in Guatemalan. However chemical dyes signaled the beginning of the end for that industry and Guatemalans started planting coffee trees. By the mid 1800s, there were already over half a million coffee trees planted around the country. As a result of the government providing economic incentives production of coffee was encouraged.

Today, coffee continues to be the largest export crop in the country. Now coffee is grown all over Guatemala. In particular coffee is being grown in the regions of Antigua, Fraijanes, Cobán, Huehuetenango, Atitlan, San Marcos. However, today one of the biggest challenges for Guatemalan coffee, is and has always been around labour availability and cost.

Guatemalan Red de Mujeres coffee

The Red de Mujeres, or ‘network of women’, is a large group of female coffee producers covering five different areas of Huehuetenango. The group is made up of 830 women, but this particular lot comes from the San Antonio Huista area and is the product of 50 producers. Within the entire community of women there are 8 different Mayan languages spoken, highlighting the diversity of culture and language in this area of Guatemala.

All of these women have been either widowed during the 36 years of civil war in Guatemala, or were left when their husbands fled the country during the coffee crisis between 2001 and 2004. Since Huehuetenango was one of the areas hardest hit by the crisis, many people decided to give up altogether and find work elsewhere, leaving their families behind.

With the help of ACODIHUE, (a Fairtrade initiative based in Huehuetenango) these female producers have been united to market their coffee and find international buyers. ACODIHUE has also supported them in training in organic farming methods, from producing and applying fertilizers, to rust and pest control methods. Falcon has started working with ACODIHUE to improve the quality of production even further, starting with Red de Mujeres.

Note: Huehuetenango is commonly pronounced “way-way-teh-NAN-go.”

Details of Guatemalan Red de Mujeres

We thought we would add classic Gautemalan to our offering. This coffee fitted the bill.

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