Potrero (GREEN)

Potrero is straight-up in the city of Antigua. Imagine: you are driving through the streets of the city, houses and stores around you, people walking along the sidewalks. You stop at a gate , and when it opens you pass by the armed guards and are immediately in a verdant, shaded coffee plantation. It’s uncanny! Potrero itself is a very interesting farm— it has gone through many ownership changes in the past, most recently being split up into 4 parcels when it was divided up equally between the former owner’s 4 children. The management of these parcels is vastly different, which also makes it an interesting place to visit to compare and contrast management techniques. Potrero lots 1 & 2 are managed by Luis Pedro Zelaya, a coffee agronomist who manages many local farms and owns and operates the Bella Vista Beneficio. The areas the he manages are exceedingly orderly— straight rows of healthy looking coffee, perfectly placed and sized rows of shade trees— it looks clean, healthy, and controlled. Seeing those areas next to the other parcels, you can easily see the difference; the other parcels had less coffee on the scrawny, wild-looking plants and looked all in all less healthy. Potrero 1 & 2 are also processed at Bella Vista’s beneficio, as opposed to on-site like lots 3 & 4, where more care is taken throughout the processing steps to maintain the highest quality.