Sagastume Typica

The Sagastume family have been involved in coffee in Santa Barbara for over a century, long before the recent recognition of the potential of the area. Pedro Sagastume’s father was allocated almost 80 hectares from state-owned lands in 1908, near the village of El Zapote. This land had to be split between Pedro and his 9 siblings on his father’s death, but Pedro’s hard work over the years has expanded his land, earning his place in the speciality coffee market through tireless research and savvy investment. Pedro is the head of the family, and as he grows older, he has begun to split the family’s land between his sons Yeltsin, Yerin and Heyvis. 

Coffee production is still a family effort; all of the picked cherry is still processed at the wet mill next to the family home. We visited the Sagastumes in March 2023, touring each of their pockets of land, and observing their work in processing, some of the most organised and professional we saw on our trip. We also tasted honey from the Sagastume’s production, a small side project enabled by the healthy bee population on the farms, a testament to their careful approach to farming, with no chemical fertilisers or pesticides used.

This Typica was grown at Los Quetzales, one of the plots managed by Pedro, harvested in May of 2023. Los Quetzales is the newest and highest altitude plot, the jewel in the Sagastumes’ crown. The family purchased these 18 hectares on the edge of the national park in 2012, planting mainly Pacas and Parainema, but added SL28, Pacamara, Typica and Geisha after realising the incredible quality potential of cherries grown here. This lot is of the Typica varietal, processed using a washed method; de-pulped, fermented for 20 hours and washed carefully, before 14 days of drying on raised beds underneath plastic solar drying tunnels.