The Antigua district produces one of the world's best coffees on the slopes of Mount Volcan. The handful of estates are dedicated to growing the best tasting coffee possible on the old Bourbon strain of bush, with Pastoral the most distinguished. This truly unique coffee, grown on trees up to 25ft high, is different even from other Antiguas and with a production of around 800 bags we feel privileged to have obtained some. The beans are dried naturally in the sun and remarkably, because the cherries have been picked so precisely, aside from hulling, need no further processing. The character of this coffee is unmistakeable, it has a deep body, glorious acidity and a complex, spicy, chocolate flavour. The aroma is chocolatey with a hint of lemony, fresh milled pepper. The flavour is elegantly wrought and luscious, with a sweet, smoky finish and creamy texture. Every once in a while, Fuego - "one of Guatemala’s three active volcanoes" - adds a fresh dusting of mineral rich ash to Antigua’s soil. Volcanic pumice in the soil retains moisture, which helps offset Antigua’s low rainfall, the lowest of Guatemala’s seven coffee regions. Like all of Guatemala’s specialty coffee, Antigua Pastoral coffee is cultivated under shade. In Antigua, shade is especially dense to protect the coffee trees from the region’s occasional frost during the chilly nights from December to February. The dense shade combined with the region’s shallow water table produces a distinct microclimate within the coffee fields.