About Finca El Aceituno

About

Celeste Fumagalli runs Gold Grains Coffee alongside her husband, Roberto Recinos, with whom she shares her great passion for coffee. Their farm, El Aceituno, was passed down from Celeste’s father, José Adolfo Fumagalli Saravia. When her father bought the land, there was no coffee trees planted, just a few fruit trees and a beautiful olive tree. This tree was baptized by the Spaniards as Aceituno, which is where her father derived the name for the farm.

El Aceituno is located 1200-1400 meters above sea level in southeast Jutiapa, Guatemala near the Pacific coast. The high altitude of our farm coupled with cooling ocean winds creates a unique climate perfect for growing high quality strictly hard bean coffee. Celeste is constantly experimenting with different plant varieties and production techniques in hopes of continually improving her process to produce the best coffees possible.

Celeste emphasizes that it all starts with the selection of the best seeds. She then implements an intensive agricultural management plan and strict harvesting routines where cherries are selected at their peak ripeness. Her goal is perfection and therefore cherries undergo strict quality control measures at the wet mill along with an innovative batch-processing module to maintain the traceability of each lot.

Above all, Gold Grains coffee prioritizes innovation, conservation, and community. Celeste believes there is always a more eco-friendly, innovative way to both improve the quality of her specialty coffee and uplift her local community. By staying grounded in her values of integrity, productivity, and teamwork, she aims to create an equitable working environment with no tolerance for discrimination.

Family History & The Founding of Gold Grains Coffee

From the time she was a little girl, Celeste has grown alongside coffee trees. Celeste remembers planting coffee trees with her dad starting at the age of four. He explained to her the importance of their family farm and since then her life’s journey in the coffee industry began. Her father taught her to care for nature, to love the earth, and to continue to grow coffee.

Celeste says her love for coffee is owed to her father. He left her family with a great example of what it means to be a hard worker. Through his teachings, she has become a woman dedicated to specialty coffee with a family who shares her passion. Celeste has a loving husband, Roberto Recinos, and three sons, José, Juanito, and Nico, whom always provide her with their unconditional support.

In January of 2007, Celeste’s father passed and she took over El Aceituno. Six years later in 2013, a previously trusted intermediary obtained her harvest and never paid. Celeste’s family was left in a difficult position as they heavily depended on the harvest income for a living.

With courage and much faith, Celeste made a promise that she would take complete control over her production process. She applied for loans to continue operating and in August of 2013, founded Gold Grains. That same year, Celeste built the first wet mill in Conguaco, Jutiapa. Most of the machines was made by her father and with a few modifications and some maintenance work, they continued working.

Celeste now believes it is her and her husbands’ job to transfer their knowledge of the coffee industry to future generations and instill the same passion for coffee in their children as her father did for her. In her free time, Celeste loves taking them for walks around El Aceituno and allowing them to taste and smell the coffees. It is her hope is that one day her sons will want to continue our family’s legacy in coffee.

Community Commitment

Celeste is committed to supporting her local community through empowering both woman and children and supporting the implementation of sustainable farming practices.

Focusing on Future Generations: Coffee Kindergarten and Coffee Camp

With the sponsorship of Illy Café and the support of Funcafe, Celeste implemented Coffee Kindergarten and Coffee Camp this year. The main objective of these programs is to progressively contribute to the prevention and reduction of child labor in the coffee agroindustry. Additionally, her hope is to inspire future generations with learnings from the coffee industry.

Right now, Gold Grains offers Coffee Kindergarten and Coffee Camp to young students and the children of their employees. The time frame of these programs is during the harvest, so that parents can leave their children at the farm school while they work. This way, children can have fun learning about the coffee industry as they adhere to strict guidelines to prevent Covid-19. Children in the region did not have access to education throughout 2020 and still haven’t started in-person classes. This has put much stress on families that Celeste hopes to alleviate through our program. Additionally, Coffee Camp has helped fight malnutrition amongst children through the distribution of nutritional snacks each time it meets.

Despite the hardships endured throughout the past year, Celeste is happy to have successfully completed the program. In March, she hosted a graduation ceremony where every student received a diploma endorsed by the Ministry of Education. She also recognized the top three students in each program. It is her hope to invoke the same passion for coffee in young kids in our community and show them what a career in coffee looks like.

Woman’s Empowerment through Literacy & Sustainable Support

Helping Our Local Community Achieve Literacy

In order to help combat education challenges in Guatemala, Gold Grains Coffee partnered with the National Literacy Committee (CONALFA). Through their program, they were able to help 22 women graduate and achieve literacy.

Supporting Female Farmers with Eco-friendly Resources

Celeste is proud to have partnered with the Women in Coffee Association to provide both solar panels and water filters to women working in the coffee industry. Being a female farmer herself, Celeste understands the importance providing women with the resources they need to be successful. She also understands the importance of supporting sustainable resources that will both have a lasting effect and benefit the environment. These solar panels and water filters will continue to help these women well into in the future and Celeste looks forward to continuing to support female entrepreneurs attain eco-friendly resources for their production process.

Innovation & Conservation

Celeste prioritizes the continual improvement of both her coffee quality and production process through innovative techniques and eco-friendly practices. For her, both innovation and conservation go hand in hand as the agricultural practices she uses are oriented towards sustainability. Celeste’s main goal is to reduce waste as much as possible and prioritize the environment.

An ecological wet mill is part of her innovation as the techniques she uses to recycle water through tanks and pumps greatly reduces environmental impact. Celeste owns the only wet mill located in Conguaco, Jutiapa, and is proud to be listed among the wet mills with the lowest environmental impact in Guatemala. For Celeste, water is a vital element and therefore it is the mission of Gold Grains Coffee to do everything in their power to save water resources. By recycling the water in the de-pulping process, they manage to reduce the total amount of water utilized, only using clean water for washing. The residual water produced from the fermentation and washing stages of coffee production is often referred to as “honey water”. Honey water can pollute local water sources if not treated properly. Therefore, they carefully treat this water with CAL and use it to irrigate the grasslands that provide great nutrition for cattle. A combination of manure and composted pulp then create their organic fertilizer, regenerating the existing soil and resulting in a better crop yield.

El Aceituno is home to many native species that seek refuge under the shade of our coffee trees. Therefore, Celeste is very intentional about upkeeping the forest in which the farm is surrounded and protecting the wildlife. Reforestation is a large area of emphasis for her conservation efforts. In coffee pruning and plant renovation areas, she has diversified the shade with White Mahogany, Matilisguate, and Gravilea. In new areas, agroforestry system projects have been started with INAB (National Institute of Forests), thus complying with environmental commitments. Hunting and illegal logging is strictly prohibited and she consistently monitors the wellbeing of native species.

In addition to Celeste’s innovative practices surrounding conservation, she is equally excited by innovating her product lines through experimenting with various coffee plants.

The east region of Guatemala, coined New Oriente by Guatemalan Coffees, is recognized for producing balanced coffees with full body and chocolate notes. Floral and fruit notes are usually the profiles of African coffees, but with the introduction of different varieties to El Aceituno, Celeste achieves more exotic profiles. She loves experimenting with fermentations and processes to obtain a wider spectrum of flavors and aromas which those who love specialty coffee are looking for.

Currently, some different varieties we’re growing include Red Bourbon, red and yellow catuai, Anacafe14 and Obata. Additionally, in garden the following are being grown: Marsellesa, Obata, Pacamara, Maragogype, Parainema, Tupi, Pink Bourbon, Geisha and Purpuracea.

Of course, innovation brings its risks and some exotic varieties are difficult to grow. That is why Celeste’s farm has been planting a garden of varieties for a couple of years and studying the following features: behavior of each plant, its adaptability to the microclimate, resistance to diseases, productivity and quality in cup.

Its More Than Coffee

To Celeste and her team at Gold Grains, its more than just coffee. Its community support, innovation, and conservation. Celeste’s passion for coffee is evident in everything she does and her commitment to passing her knowledge to the next generation is admired by all. Through running her own farm, she understands the hardships faced and has therefore made it her mission to support other female farmers in the region through the promotion sustainable practices. Whether it’s her coffee or community, Celeste is focused on continual improvement and will continue to positively disrupt the specialty coffee industry.