Organic Coffee

Just as organic coffee designation has a dozen ways to cheat, so does fair trade, rain forest and shade grown. In Hawaii, there are open fields with trees planted around the perimeter pretending to be shade grown. — (Kona is a more restrictive quality designation)

The only way to classify the truely good stuff is by detailed description. In Guatemala these charictoricts might be classified as SHB, strictly hard beans, but look further to the following.

1. Hand picked, wherein the family picks only ripe healthy beans. This allows for up to four harvests as younger beans mature rather than mixing them all, as does a mechanized harvest.
2. High altitude plants grown above 4,500 ft. avoiding insects and disease, ripen more slowly, are harder and taste better.
3. Volcanic soil lends a better taste and a richer healthier tree
4. Probably the most unique and exclusive characteristic derives from the coffee trees growing within the actual high mountain rain forest, a symbiotic relationship.
5. Lovingly hand cultivated Arabica coffee trees grown in hectors of mountain rainforest owned by indigenous multigenerational family farmers