It took just a weekend in Guatemala, which he visited during his Mexico trip, for Quentin to fall in love with this small central American country, which borders Mexico, Belize, Honduras and Salvador :

I went back in 2016 with my father, for 10 days of coffee!  We obviously saw magnificent landscapes as well, but we visited plantations and two cooperatives, the largest of which in terms of coffee post-processing, Fedecocagua, brings together 80 smaller cooperatives!  It is like a tree with numerous offshoots, functioning like an enormous factory.

The volcanoes in this region are still active, yet nothing stops producers growing their crops of exceptional coffees (such as Antigua), even if they run the risk of their harvest being destroyed by an eruption.  The Fuego (fire) volcano in fact erupted while we were there.  We climbed the San Pedro volcano, amongst the coffee plants, to reach the summit at sunrise: a breath-taking spectacle!  Tourists often visit Pacaya, which spits out clouds of steam in which you can melt marshmallows or make toast!

Sugar cane is also grown in Guatemala, and trains of sugar cane are a common sight along the roads: trucks driving at full speed despite pulling 6 or 7 trailers behind them!  It is a truly impressive country, authentic and welcoming, visited for its Mayan ruins, the luxuriant jungle, its cultural heritage: Antigua, the ancient capital, with its coloured house-fronts, is not to be missed, its chicken buses (souped-up American school buses) and the colourful markets with a thousand tastes on offer.  And let's not forget the delicious coffee!

Guatemalan coffee from Café Liégeois : Acatenango, a full-bodied coffee with a rounded taste, grown at altitudes of between 1400 and 2000 metres, in a region where the local inhabitants have been producing quality coffees since 1880.