Country: Guatemala Region: Nuevo Oriente Varietal: Caturra, Catuai, Villasarchi Process: Washed Altitude: 1,200 - 1,600 MASL Cupping Notes: Brown Sugar, Fudge, Orange Recommended Roast: City to Full City+ Good For: Pour Over, Auto Drip, Espresso, Blends Description: This is a regional lot that we put together with our export partners in Guatemala City. Monteclara comes from the Nuevo Oriente region of Guatemala, in the far eastern area of Guatemala along the Honduras and El Salvador border. Nuevo Oriente is a relatively new coffee growing region, only beginning cultivation in the 1950s. The regions volcanos are inactive, but they remnants of previous eruptions have created rich volcanic soils perfect for coffee production. Coffee in this region grows between 1200-1600 meters and the weather is cloudy and rainy. This is a challenge for harvest time as drying times are extended in higher humidity environments. Thus, depending on the weather, coffee harvests can be dried either on patios or in guardiolas. Despite the humidity, the slower growing coffee of Nuevo Oriente is practically bursting with flavor. This coffee comes from a multitude of smallholder farms in Oriente, many of whom have been farming the same land for multiple generations. Like many farmers in Guatemala, most of the farmers have their own wet mill, so they can control their quality all the way from harvest through processing and drying.