Finca Santa Clara, Guatemala

The Lemus Family Legacy

Finca Santa Clara represents three generations of the Lemus family's dedication to coffee. The farm was started by Rosario Lemus's grandparents in the early 1960s, when they decided to focus their farming efforts on planting coffee, looking for an honest and respectable way to earn a living.

Today, Rosario Lemus and her brother Oscar carry forward this invaluable inheritance as the third generation, committed to making an honest and respectful living by producing quality differentiated coffee—a legacy they want to pass on to their children.

Meet Rosario Lemus

Rosario has dedicated her life to coffee. She graduated from Universidad Rafael Landivar as an agronomist with specialty courses in coffee farm and harvest management. She has worked for many years in hydroponics and is currently developing studies in regenerative agriculture and coffee agribusiness.

Rosario directly manages many farm activities year-round, from flowering through harvest. She reviews different parcels daily to monitor growing conditions and potential issues, with special attention to plant nutrition and disease prevention like rust.

A Blessed Microclimate

The coffee at Santa Clara is blessed with microclimates typical of the Santa Rosa highland region, allowing diverse complementary vegetation to accompany and help the coffee plants. The grandparents developed several parcels with coffee and preserved native varieties of pine (pinus maximioi), oak, and other hardwoods which provide shade cover.

The coffee varieties planted by the grandparents in the 1960s include bourbon, catuaí, caturra, and a unique local specialty of San Ramon now called pache colis. Rosario and Oscar have recently planted the traditional variety of maragogype as well. All these varieties are SHB (Strictly Hard Bean) at this altitude, averaging 5,740 feet.

Year-Round Coffee Cycle

At Santa Clara, the coffee season goes all year round. It starts with flowering in the rainy season, typically in May, and continues through harvest from January through March or April. Each season has its own activities, and then the cycle repeats. Coffee is a sensitive crop requiring year-round care.

Hand labor is necessary. Rosario and Oscar work with local help for activities like pruning, fertilizing, and harvest. With strong migration to the U.S., lack of local labor has become a constant challenge. But they manage thanks to the locals, who know that over many years the farm has provided a good family work environment and fair pay.

Natural Process Focus

In the post-harvest process, Rosario is focusing on developing excellent natural profiles for their coffees. She concentrates on separating her lots and varieties, providing each lot with the individual attention it requires. She prefers to continue a more traditional post-harvest approach in her natural profiles rather than utilizing additional fermentation methods.

Rosario has prepared some washed lots by traditional mill, including Bourbon, in small quantities on the farm. For the moment, she is focusing on naturals, though she may invest in more efficient wet mill equipment further down the line.

A New Market Approach

Rosario's grandparents and parents for two generations turned their coffee harvest over to local mills in parchment and never gave thought to where it eventually went. But times change—the cost of raising quality differentiated coffee is more elevated than commercial quality, and local mills pay poorly without recognizing the extra effort needed for differentiated coffees.

Santa Clara farm is better equipped to produce quality differentiated coffees and will do better not selling to the commercial market. Rosario met Patty Heffron several years ago and asked if Patty could help her develop a market for her natural varieties. That's how we started working together, developing the market in Michigan for quality single-source differentiated coffee.

Farm Details

Farm: Finca Santa Clara

Growers: Rosario Lemus, brother Oscar, and the Lemus family

Country: Guatemala

Region: Santa Rosa, Mataquescuintla

Altitude: 5,200 – 5,900 feet

Varieties: Maragogype, Bourbon, Catuaí, Caturra, Pache Colis

Processes: Mostly natural, some washed

Years Active: 3 generations since the early 1960s

Taste Their Story

Every cup from Finca Santa Clara represents three generations of honest work, dedication to quality, and the Lemus family's commitment to their land and community.