When the jungle goes quiet.
There are stories told that no one believes anymore.
Steps at the Mayan Archeological Site of Tak’alik Ab’aj. November, 2004.
“There are stories told that no one believes anymore -not even the grandmothers or the children-, this city was built on cities that were buried in the center of America. The rocks in their walls were bound together with milk.
To signal their first foundations, thirty feathers and thirty joints of powdered gold were buried in envelopes next to the bad weeds, according to a very loud account of many generations; they were buried in a rotten tree trunk, others say, they were buried under logs cut down for firewood,
or in the mountain where the fountains spring.
There is a belief that trees exhale the breath of the people that inhabit the buried cities and this is why, according to legend, in their shade those seeking council from matters of the soul and of the heart find comfort, the lost birds find their way, and the poets receive inspiration.
Trees bewitch the whole town.
– Excerpt from “Legends of Guatemala” by Miguel Angel Asturias.”
My name is Josué Morales and I have been working in the specialty coffee industry since 2003. Most of my work has been done in the Highlands of Guatemala, but I’ve always had a special place in my heart for the coffees grown at lower altitudes.
One hundred years ago the vast majority of coffee being produced in Guatemala was grown at low to mid altitude in an area called the Boca Costa. This is a region that is located at the plains that stretch from the Pacific Ocean all the way to the steep climb to the high altitude barrier formed by the chain of volcanoes.
Retalhuleu is located at the heart of the Boca Costa, about halfway between Antigua Guatemala and the border with Mexico. We seldom think of it as a region for coffee production because it now produces mostly sugar cane, rubber and palm oil.
Abandoned rubber fields. Retalhuleu, Guatemala. June, 2015.
There is a farm in Retalhuleu called Montes Eliseos. I first arrived there in November of 2004. Making my way slowly up a muddy dirt road for about forty five minutes, it was easy to tell I was getting closer as I heard the unmistakable sound of coffee pulping machines roaring.
The washing station at this farm is still powered by a massive generator from the 1780’s that creates electricity from the current of a river. The coffee produced here tastes like hot chocolate with blackberry jam on pancakes. Not a faintly diluted hot chocolate, but a strong chocolate taste.
Dinner was served early because there is no electricity in the dining area, which is located about a half a mile’s walk across the subtropical rainforest. We sat in wooden tables enshrined by a ranch built around the sculpture of a very rare ancient deity revered by both the Mayan and the Aztec Civilizations: the God of Rain.
After dinner I joined the workers in gathering around a fire right outside the ranch. Stories were told about the forest, about ghosts, about an ancient cemetery that was found when the farm was being planted, and most important, about one of the oldest cities of the Mayan Civilization that was also found when the coffee trees started to be planted.
The site is called Tak'alik Ab'aj and it was one of the most important commercial, ceremonial, and political cities of the Preclassic and Classic periods. It derives its importance from the link that it provided for long-distance Maya trade routes that covered an area that included at least the south of Mexico, El Salvador and the highlands of Guatemala.
It’s one of the largest sites with sculptured monuments on the Boca Costa and it has one of the greatest concentrations of Olmec sculptures outside of Mexico. It was here where some of the last remnants of the Olmec merged with some of the earliest of the Maya. Stela 2 of Tak'alik Ab'aj contains the earliest known inscription of a date in the format of The Long Count, what is vulgarly known as the Mayan Calendar.
When I visited, only about 5% of the city had been unearthed. The most puzzling of pieces was one of the first altar style structures. The standing stone that gives name to the place is made from a type of rock that can only be found hundreds of miles away. Weighing several tons, it poses one of those ancient mysteries of how it got there. There is an inscription on it that says the rock is a gift from The Rulers of the North to The Rulers of the South.
After many stories had been told, everyone started going to bed. Everyone had their bed in the building next to the ranch, except me. Because I was a guest, I was to stay in the house of the farm. Alone. I was given a torch and told not to stray away from the path and that, no matter what I saw or heard, I should never attempt to run.
There’s something about the forests of the Boca Costa that makes them feel timeless. The ages are felt under their shade and in every step taken on their silent soils. The night time, however, is a whole different story.
The greens come to life and seem brighter around the circle of the torch. Sounds are loud in every direction as the darkness explodes in life. Being delighted by this exuberantly vibrant concert of the most diverse sounds of life, there is no experience more terrifying than sudden and absolute silence.
Never attempt to run!
In the middle of the emptiness, I started hearing my own breathing, and even my own heartbeat. Drops of nervous sweat ran down like tears in my eyes.
The grunt of the jaguar is like the sound of a saw cutting through wood in one single direction. I couldn’t really hear it with my ears. I felt it inside my head and from there the vibration resonated throughout my body.
Legend has it that jaguars don’t attack men. I kept deliberately thinking that to myself as I continued to walk slowly, while fighting the urge to run.
I don’t think I could have screamed even if I wanted to.
The jaguar is also the only feline that doesn’t kill by the jugular. Its jaw evolved in such a way that it pops the skull of its prey for a more efficient kill. Another reassuring thought.
Past the gate I could feel life finally but slowly start flowing back into my veins.
I made it to the room. Alive.
From there to the restroom there was another half a block, down some frog ridden steps towards the water reservoirs below. In the middle of the night I woke up to take a necessary walk that was interrupted by the sight of the lonely chapel across the courtyard.
An old little church with doors wide open and completely lit up with oil lamps and candles, and no one in sight except for a dog that sat in the porch area of my room.
Night view of the room where I slept in the Boca Costa. November, 2004.
I couldn’t really sleep well. The best part about it was the sounds of dawn. The first clearings of light and the sunrise delayed behind the massive Santa María Volcano. On the side, the Santiaguito Volcano fuming a single thread of constant smoke.
The sudden warmth of the lowlands reminded me that I was here to further my learning path.
My first friends in the coffee industry were on average forty to fifty years older than me. Most of them were coffee producers, yet some of them had been tasters and buyers for the coffee companies that shaped the producing world into servicing the growing global demand for quality.
Japanese, German, French, and a handful of Americans became a valuable bank of knowledge that invested in my formation as a taster and coffee professional. They mentored me, yelled at me, became disillusioned with me, and I want to believe that they ultimately felt proud of me. Ambassadors from a different era that life placed fortuitously in my path.
I learned from them the importance of the low grown coffees, one of the reasons that brought me to this farm.
Low grown coffees are highly soluble, extremely aromatic, and provide a greater balance to taste when used appropriately in blends, especially in those blends used for espresso. A lost art, like that of making clean classic malt whiskey.
The scale of scoring a coffee has made it so that the interpretation is based on loudness and not in the uniqueness of the expressions of taste, unfairly punishing certain origins and regions and killing the price incentive that would allow for them to become the best expression of themselves.
New tasters have been flocking the novelty of big and loud profiles as a result of extreme processing styles. These coffees are surely a fast track to stand out, and the most controversial tastes are often mistaken for the expression of quality.
This is not the only way to stand out. This is not the only way to understand quality. There is the way of the legends that came before me. There is the way of the stories that shaped my learning path. There is the way of the forests that imprinted an unequivocal voice into the evolution of taste.
I am certain that the pendulum will swing back towards a newfound appreciation of taste that does not fit in a scorecard. Tastes that amaze by revealing the simple but magical aspects of terroir.
I’ll be waiting, patiently.