Guatemala - El Pesadero
A sweet, clean and perfectly balanced cup with notes of milk chocolate and hazelnut balanced by a crisp, red apple sweetness and a juicy tangerine-toned acidity.
We roast and ship Monday - Friday.
Orders received before 9am typically ship same day.
Couldn't load pickup availability
Technical Information
Producer: Stuardo Coto
Region: Antigua, Guatemala
Harvest: Spring 2025
Varietal(s): Bourbon and Caturra
Process: Fully-washed
Altitude: 1,550 masl
Agtron Gourmet Color: 101 (light)
Exporter: Panorama Coffee
Importer: Panorama Coffee
Coffee Story
Finca El Pesadero sits in the hills above Antigua, Guatemala, as one of the newest projects in the Coto family’s long coffee story. Recently acquired and planted entirely to arabica varieties, the farm is small in scale but guided by decades of experience: owner Stuardo Coto applies the same careful agronomy, shade management, and soil stewardship that define his flagship estate, Finca El Platanillo. The result is a tiny, focused canvas where long-honed practices meet a new landscape.
Antigua itself is one of Guatemala’s most important and historic coffee regions, officially recognized among the country’s eight denomination-style growing areas.
Here, coffee grows in a high-altitude valley ringed by three volcanoes—Agua, Fuego, and Acatenango—whose mineral-rich, pumice-laced soils, sunny days, cool nights, and low humidity create a textbook microclimate for dense, sweet, and structured coffees.
Antigua coffees are celebrated for their balance: chocolate and confectionary sweetness, a clean, lively acidity, and subtle spice tones that reflect the volcanic landscape.
Just below the farms, the city of Antigua runs on a different kind of energy. Once the seat of Spanish power in Central America, it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site of cobblestone streets, baroque church facades, and earthquake-softened ruins set against a backdrop of smoking volcanoes. Cafés, markets, and courtyard restaurants fill restored 16th- and 17th-century buildings. The rumble of the surrounding volcanoes can be felt and heard throughout the town and on clear evenings you can watch Fuego send a ribbon of ash into the sky while the city glows below.
El Pesadero is part of this landscape, rooted in Antigua’s long coffee heritage, but very much a living, evolving project in the hands of a producer who has spent his career refining what great Guatemalan coffee can be.
Collapsible content
Varietal
Bourbon is one of the most widely known and oldest varietals of Arabica. The varietal was introduced to and named after the island of Bourbon (now known as Reunion Island) by French missionaries from Yemen in the early 1700s. It spread through Africa and the Americas in the mid 1800s. Many varietals today have a lineage tied to the Bourbon varietal. Bourbon is known to have great cup quality but has medium-low volume per-plant production and is susceptible to all of the major coffee diseases.
Caturra is a naturally occurring dwarf mutation of Bourbon discovered in Brazil in the early 20th century. First identified on a plantation in Minas Gerais, it was selected and propagated for its compact size, which allows for denser planting and easier harvesting. By the mid-1900s, Caturra had spread throughout Latin America, becoming one of the most influential cultivars in the region’s coffee development.
Caturra maintains much of Bourbon’s cup potential, clean sweetness, balanced acidity, and approachable structure, while offering significantly higher yields per plant. Its compact stature, however, does not make it hardier: Caturra remains highly susceptible to leaf rust and other major coffee diseases. For many producers, it represents the classic tradeoff between cup quality and agronomic risk.
Processing
This coffee is fully-washed in the traditional Guatemalan method. The coffee is harvested ripe, de-pulped upon arrival to the wet-mill and fermented for 12-18 hours. The coffee is slowly dried on patios during the morning and early evening and covered during mid-day and overnight.
Terroir
Antigua, Guatemala is a designated coffee origin located in a valley surrounded by three volcanoes—Agua, Fuego, and Acatenango—at elevations typically ranging from 1,500 to 1,700 meters above sea level. Coffee cultivation began commercially in the mid-1800s, with the region’s well-drained volcanic soils, consistent rainfall patterns, and marked dry season providing optimal conditions for high-quality Arabica production, predominantly Bourbon and Caturra varieties. Coffees from Antigua are known for their balance and structure, featuring a full body, mild to medium acidity, and a flavor profile often characterized by chocolate and caramel sweetness, subtle fruit tones, and a clean finish.