Above: Nursery at Santa Ana; talking with Fernando Diaz (right), who runs Santa Ana; patio and raised bed drying; looking down on the wet mill from higher up on the farm; Humberto Peña, esteemed cupper and director of SUBE, the dry mill where this lot was prepared.

Santa Ana is fairly centrally located in Guatemala, just an hours drive from Guatemala City. It's part of a set of four adjacent farms and one wet mill; they used to be managed as one property by Fernando Diaz's father (Fernando now manages Santa Ana and a few of the other farms), but had split up the property amongst his four children.

Santa Ana has made a name for itself in the past decade, placing top ten in Cup of Excellence five times. Fernando takes pride in maintaining the prestige of the farm, but has a healthy balance of also valuing good quality of life for his family and the people who work on his farm. These values made Fernando a great fit for us, as we can relate on a level beyond just coffee quality.

This year Fernando was getting ready to submit this lot to Cup of Excellence, but on a visit during harvest it came up in conversation and we agreed to purchase the lot instead in a win/win: we got access to a phenomenal coffee, and the farm was able to receive payment quicker and bypass jumping through the hoops of entering the competition.