Three generations on one hillside
El Bosque, meaning "the forest", sits on a hillside running parallel to the main road into Guatemala City, a short drive from the town of Amatitlán and the lake that shares its name. The family story here stretches back almost a century. In 1929 a larger family estate was divided between two branches of the Flores family, and both still call their land El Bosque. In 1932 Julian Flores planted 14 hectares of Bourbon on this hillside, and El Bosque still has 14 hectares under coffee today. When he died in 1947, his only son, José Eladio Flores, took over and carried on growing the same Bourbon.
For those first two generations, El Bosque sold its coffee as cherry and left the processing to others. That changed with the third generation. Since José's death in 1996, the farm has been run by his widow, Martha Stalla, and their sons Julio, José, Francisco and Mario. They built their own wet mill and started processing the coffee themselves.
Coffee in the shade
The name is literal. Coffee here grows beneath a canopy of native trees, with dappled light filtering through to the plants below. Sitting at 1,400 to 1,645 metres in the volcanic highlands south of the capital, it's a traditional farm, looked after by five full-time workers who live locally, with around 20 more joining for the harvest.
The steep hillside leaves no flat ground to spare, so freshly picked cherries are driven down the hill to the family's mill and drying patios in Amatitlán town. There the coffee is depulped, washed and dried before moving to the warehouse for storage.
Bourbon at heart
Bourbon has always been the backbone of El Bosque. Over the years the family has also planted some Pache, a compact mutation of Typica first found in Guatemala, alongside Caturra and Catuai. The Bourbon still wins in the cup, but each of the others has its own strengths in the field, and growing a mix of plants is a sensible hedge against pests, disease and an unpredictable climate.
A friendship built on Red Bourbon
Steve Leighton, who founded Hasbean, now part of Ozone, loved El Bosque before he ever set foot on the farm. His first visit in January 2007 sealed it, once he'd met the family behind the coffee. On a return trip in 2009, Steve got talking with Francisco about the farm's Bourbon trees, which bear both red and yellow cherries, and wondered how the two would taste if they were picked and processed separately. Splitting the harvest was a big ask, so Hasbean committed to buying the lot. The result was a coffee made only from Red Bourbon, and for years you couldn't find it anywhere else in the world. Harvests are smaller these days, so the red and yellow cherries are processed together again. It's still Bourbon through and through.
Life on the edge of the city
Being this close to Guatemala City brings real pressure. The capital keeps spreading, and urban development is a constant threat to farmland on its edges. Over the nearly two decades we've worked together, though, the prices El Bosque earns for its coffee have helped make the farm a top priority for the family, and they're determined to protect and sustain it.
They haven't put all their eggs in one basket, either. Alongside the coffee, the Flores family grows avocados, lemons and roses for the local community. We reckon El Bosque could make some seriously good avo toast, and they've already got the coffee to go with it.
