Gilberto Ramirez Guatemala

DELICATE, BALANCED, COMPLEX.

Producer: Gilberto Ramirez
Location: Tuiboch, Huehuetenango, Guatemala
Elevation: 1800 meters
Variety: Caturra 
Process: Fully Washed

This coffee comes from Gilberto Ramirez, grown on his farm in the township of Tuiboch, near the shores of the Río Ocho in the Todos Santos Cuchumatán municipality, in the department of Huehuetenango. Gilberto is a long-term member of the ASODIETT cooperative.

The ASODIETT cooperative consists of about 30 families, many of whom are of Maya Mam ethnicity. Most members still primarily speak the Mam language, with Spanish as a second language. The group was formed in 1995, formalized as an Association in 2010, and received Cooperative status in 2017. Located along the skirts of the Río Ocho, the members’ farms benefit from healthy soils and favorable conditions for coffee cultivation.

ASODIETT has steadily grown in recent years, thanks to the intentional leadership and connections built by their leader, Macario Calmo. The group is currently working on completing a two-story warehouse that will allow them to store members’ coffee in cooler, more stable conditions. The warehouse already serves as a community center, housing a small, community-led pharmacy on the first floor, and providing a space for communal meetings. The group's solidarity and focus on shared progress are evident.

The members of ASODIETT, including Gilberto, practice traditional farming methods that rely minimally on synthetic chemical fertilizers, fungicides, pesticides, or herbicides. Two members, Fernando Santos and Vicente Calmo, oversee the cooperative’s bio-lab, where they produce a fermented foliar spray from the leaves of a local plant called Horsetail, steeped in water. Combined with decomposed coffee pulp, manure, and leaf litter from native leguminous trees, this product is used as a fertilizer to replenish the soil with microorganisms and nutrients, keeping the coffee trees resilient and healthy. The cooperative also collectively purchases organic fertilizers, distributing them to members based on the amount of parchment coffee each producer sells to the cooperative. Gilberto uses both the organic fertilizer provided by the cooperative and additional fertilizer he purchases.