Volcanic soil, knowhow key to premium Antigua coffee

Margarita Asensio sits near coffee peels while giving The Korea Times a tour to her coffee farm in Antigua, Guatemala last weekend. / Korea Times photo by Kang Hyun-kyung

By Kang Hyun-kyung

ANTIGUA ― For Margarita Asensio, her coffee plantation represents her life, enthusiasm and life-long investment to get better and more coffee.

Asensio, 55, said last weekend that there are three vital factors that have helped Antigua coffee gain the reputation of a premium product featuring flagrance and flavor. They are the rich volcanic soil, good weather, and the knowhow to prevent coffee trees from “being stressed out.”

To help the trees produce quality beans, Asensio said that creating shade to protect them from the sun is a key factor.

Antigua growers plant gravelea trees nearby when planting coffee trees.

“This Australian tree grows really fast and its roots go deep down into soil. This tree survives frost which usually comes in January and February here,” Asensio said.

With its leaves, the taller tree protects coffee trees from the sun by creating shade.

Finca Colombia, her coffee farm in Antigua, Guatemala, is a reflection of where Asensio is today. The 55-year old “coffee person,” a third generation Spanish immigrant to Guatemala, was born and raised with a coffee plantation in her backyard.

Over the five decades of her life, the plantation has shaped her life, detailed her dreams and characterized her ambitions.

Asensio’s grandmother came to Antigua in 1925 with her family from Spain and settled there.

“I think my grandmother must have been a very strong woman, considering that she was determined to come all the way down to this Central American country from Europe with her family at that time,” said Asensio.

Her father ran the coffee farm after Asensio’s grandmother passed away.

When he retired, her father picked Asensio, among other siblings, to inherit the plantation. She said her father’s decision was uncommon back then, given that sons inherited assets from their parents in many families.

“I didn’t ask him why he chose me to take over our family’s coffee farm. But I guess he knew that I love this farm more than my brother does,” she said.

Workers in Finca Colombia in Antigua, home to premium coffee in the Central American country, are never allowed to use a machine when harvesting coffee beans. This could be partly because the farm is not so big, compared with other coffee plantations in the city.

But the size of her farm is not a key reason. Asensio is reluctant to use machines because harvesting by machines makes it difficult for her to control the quality of the coffee. Machines pick both green and red beans. Green beans are immature ones, whereas red or yellow beans mean they are ripe enough to pick.

Asensio has insisted on the traditional way of picking beans by hand to preserve the flavor, taste and quality of her coffee.

During a tour to her farm Saturday, she said that growing coffee requires her and six full-time workers to take care of coffee trees and keep investing all year around.

“Here in Antigua, the harvesting season comes from late December through late March,” she said. During the harvesting season, about 30 or 40 temporary workers join her farm.

These “nomadic” workers come to the farm around that time and leave for another temporary job when the season is off. “During the non-harvesting season, they have other temporary jobs to feed their children and support their family,” Asensio said.

After the harvesting season, she and her workers “check” coffee trees to see if they can produce enough quantity and meet quality. They plant trees, prune branches, and replace coffee trees if they are not good during the off season.