Guatemala El Regalito at the Coffee Company
A beautiful brew from the coffee-growing star of Central America
March means the rollout of a great newly-arrived single-estate coffee from Guatemala. What we’ve come to know here in recent weeks as El Regalito—“the little gift” in English—is lovely, easy to drink, and highly enjoyable. I’m sipping it as I write, and I have the feeling I’ll keep that up all day! It’s that good!
Author Eduardo Galeano writes that “A search for keys in the past history to help explain our time—a time that also makes history on the basis that the first condition for changing reality is to understand it.” With Galeano’s wise words in mind, Guatemala has an ancient and highly esteemed history that goes back to the advanced Mayan civilization from about 2000 B.C. Coffee, though, is a relatively recent arrival—serious commercial planting started in the middle of the 19th century, primarily with German immigrant planters, about a decade after the demise of a nation-state that almost no one around these parts will have heard of. The Federal Republic of Central America was founded in 1823, less than 50 years after the Declaration of Independence of the U.S. It included what’s now Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Chiapas, and Guatemala. The Federal Republic started with much the same spirit as the U.S., as a democratic nation-state, but came apart in the course of its own Civil War in 1838. Had it continued as the U.S. did, we would likely be thinking of all those places as the Central American corollary to California, North Carolina, or Texas.
A century and a half down the road of history, Guatemala consistently produces some of the most flavorful coffee one can find anywhere. And some of the best of the best comes from the Huehuetenango region in the county’s northwest. Here’s what the crew at the Coffee Company said:
Finca El Regalito is on the west side of the village of Hoja Blanca in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, with Mexico almost visible across the valley to the northwest. Huehuetenango is one of Guatemala’s prized coffee-growing regions, and with coffees as vibrant and exciting as this one, it’s easy to see why.
El Regalito is led by Arturo Villatoro and his son Vielmann, who manages the day-to-day running of the farm. Their lots are on a sheer ridgeline where Chalum, Mandarin, and Capulin trees shade the classic Bourbon and Caturra coffee varieties.
We found this coffee to be layered and approachable, with familiar flavors like cocoa and brown sugar plus a hint of crisp fruit that reminded us of pear.
I’ve been loving this great Guatemalan coffee and drinking it regularly for the last few weeks. It’s got a wonderful combination of depth and delicacy, substance and subtlety, softness and strength. There is something special, hard to pin down, that makes it so eminently calming, comforting, and enjoyable. It has what architect Christopher Alexander, whose work I reference in “The Story of Visioning at Zingerman’s” pamphlet, describes: “In our lives, this quality without a name is the most precious thing we ever have.”
Come by the Coffee Company, the Deli, or Roadhouse and grab a bag of beans or a cup to go.
A little gift to yourself
