MORE ABOUT

THIS COFFEE

Max Pérez, a 5th generation coffee farmer, was raised on a coffee farm in Huehuetenango with a dream of eventually having his own coffee enterprise. He and his wife Claudia, trained to be lawyers and in 2010, they took the plunge into coffee farming with the purchase of Finca La Hermosa.

The first steps after buying Finca La Hermosa, were for Max to evaluate the soil and the existing trees and get the farm to be productive. From there, his imperative was to make the farm a successful business, which he has done through the pursuit of cultivating new and exciting varieties that have not been grown in Guatemala previously.

25 hectares of the 320 hectare farm are now planted with different Gesha varieties, sourced from Max’s journeys through the world to find unique and delicious coffee varieties. Some of his first Gesha trees were purchased as seedlings in 2012, from the infamous Hacienda La Esmeralda, Panama, the farm that broke the world record for price per pound in 2004, when it sold at Best of Panama auction for $21 per pound. Other Gesha plants have been purchased from other farms that had a similar soil and condition as Finca La Hermosa, some of which were in Ethiopia and Tanzania.

Max now has his own nursery, propagating not only Gesha seedlings, but also Choriso, Pink Bourbon, Pacamara and other rarer varieties gathered on his travels. He plants a lot of new trees every year to broaden the Gesha Forest project at Finca La Hermosa and what he doesn’t plant he sells to his neighbouring coffee growing friends.

Last year, Max was able to produce enough Gesha coffee to have his own auction from the Gesha Forest project, which is the first and only Gesha auction in Guatemala. He was able to produce 25 bags Tanzanian orange Gesha, 20 bags of natural process Panamanian Gesha, and 15 bags of washed Ethiopian Gesha, all of which were sold to Korean and Chinese coffee companies. This year, after our visit to Max’s farm, we were able to secure a small quantity of the Washed Ethiopian Gesha before this year’s auction which is what is available for purchase on this page. You can also find Max's other coffee here: Finca La Hermosa, Guatemala