We had the privilege to sit down with our longstanding coffee producer partner, Petrona Perez, a second-generation coffee producer in Aldea Qom in the Huehuetenango region of Guatemala. We got to catch up with Petrona during our coffee buying travels to Guatemala this year, and spoke with her and her newborn baby.
Petrona’s farm is located in the town of Qom in the Huehuetenango region, on the tail end of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas mountain range. Unlike other coffee-growing regions, Huehuetenango is characterized by clay-loam soil, rather than volcanic. Clay-loam soil can retain water at a slow draining rate, which is ideal as coffee requires moist soil. The high elevation of Finca Satchibal is met with dry, hot winds that blow across the border from Mexico’s Tehuantepec plain, allowing the coffee to grow free from the threat of frost. Focusing on Caturra and Bourbon varieties, Petrona puts immense intention into her coffee, honoring her mother’s original goal of creating stability and growth.
Petrona represents an exemplary figure of all women in coffee that are dominating the specialty world. Here, Petrona shares in her own words where she finds inspiration.
What inspires you?
My inspiration starts at the very beginning - my family. Growing and producing coffee is good for my family. Growing coffee brings people like you from Verve to my home, which is good for my community. Having the Verve team here brings me so much joy and motivates me to continue working hard on growing my coffee, and to continually improve it so that we can all benefit from it. It’s a privilege to grow my relationship with Verve, and to get to know the Verve team on a deeper level.
What are your future goals?
Because coffee production is decreasing year after year, my immediate goal is to renew and grow coffee plantations. To make this happen, it’s a matter of having more coffee seeds and then planting new coffee plantations. This will allow for more production in volume and will result in better pricing to sell our coffee. The increase in coffee production will benefit my entire family and community here at large.
What do you love about your job?
I love everything about what I do. I love observing the entire growth process of the coffee plant - to observe the maturation from seedling to flowering and harvest. I honestly just love everything about producing and farming coffee.