Clear Lake Coffee Roasters: Explorer & History Series - Blue Lake Elevation: Brewing Perfection with Guatemala's Unique Coffee Gem - Jan 5, 2024

There are volcanic eruptions and there are volcanic eruptions. Sometimes a volcano just blows its top. And sometimes the eruption is so catastrophic that most of a volcanoes’ mountain home vanishes completely, leaving a crater in its place. This crater is called a “caldera,” which is Spanish for “cauldron” (because, presumably, so much of the volcanic “ring of fire” that encircles the Pacific Ocean is located in Spanish speaking regions and also, many calderas become lakes and the Latin root for caldera means hot bath, so there’s that).

Around 90 miles southeast of Guatemala City, this type of catastrophic eruption happened twice over 20,000 years ago. Two separate volcanoes, next door neighbors, erupted into oblivion and became calderas. The eruptions occurred 4,000 years apart—almost simultaneous in geological time—forming a “double caldera” (aka a twin caldera), the eastern small caldera and the western large caldera. The two calderas eventually became a single lake, Laguna de Ayarza. The small caldera is much shallower because the volcano that used to be there erupted before its neighbor, so when volcano number two went kablooey a lot of the debris ended up inside the hole that was once volcano number one.  

As unlucky as these eruptions might have been for the local animals—and maybe humans too, opinions vary so consult your family archeologist—it was good luck for the coffee that would one day be planted in the region, and good luck for Covoya, which today operates a cherry mill nearby.

Geologists estimate that the twin volcanos were 3,000 feet taller than the current calderas, which sit at 4,600 feet, just over 1,400 meters. This altitude, combined with relatively youthful and nutrient rich volcanic soil, provides excellent conditions for growing coffee.  

The only thing missing is a fully equipped mill that is nimble enough to process coffee any which way we want throughout the harvest season. Oh wait, we have one of those!

The Ayarza Cherry Mill processes a wide variety of coffee qualities during harvest season, but only high grown coffees harvested in the late winter and early spring can earn the “Blue Ayarza” label, a nod to the nickname locals have given to the twin caldera lake. Because the lake is relatively deep (up to 755 feet in places and some claim the true depth remains a mystery), longer wavelength light, like blue, is reflected back to the surface. Lake Ayarza is also unsurprisingly rich in minerals and algae. The result is strikingly blue water, so locals call it Lake Azul, Blue Lake.

More than 1,000 coffee growers surrounding the “Blue Lake,” their farms as high as 1,900 meters, bring cherry to the Ayarza Mill. Although most coffee farmers in the volcanic highlands of Santa Rosa are smallholders, some are smaller than others, so cherry can arrive by the truckload or just a few bags at a time.

In addition to Spanish there are 28 indigenous dialects spoken in the Department of Santa Rosa and Spanish is a second language for 40% of the population. Santa Rosa is the only region in Guatemala where the ancient language of Xinca is spoken, or “semi-spoken,” since all forms of Xinca are considered technically extinct and as of 2010 there are no longer any completely fluent speakers alive. Language and cultural diversity is common in all the highlands of Guatemala.

Diversity, or perhaps adaptability, was the watchword behind development of the Ayarza Cherry Mill. Covoya and our colleagues at ofi wanted the flexibility to use a variety of processing methods, including newly emerging innovative techniques, whatever the coffee itself and the market requires. From traditional naturals, to fully washed coffee and everything in between, the mill near Laguna de Ayarza is ready for anything, including the very finest coffees from the region that receive the Blue Ayarza moniker.