Guatemala, Santa Clara

About the Coffee

Santa Clara is a family-run estate in Antigua, Guatemala, overseen by Ricardo Zelaya, a fourth-generation producer. The farm sits on the slopes of Volcán de Agua, where volcanic soils and high elevation create consistent growing conditions year over year. Zelaya inherited both the land and a long-standing approach to farming that prioritizes quality at the farm level rather than at the roasting stage.

Santa Clara uses shade-grown practices, meaning coffee plants grow under a canopy of native trees rather than in open fields. This slows the development of the coffee cherry, and the shade canopy supports natural forest preservation on the estate. The farm also operates an eco-conscious wet mill on-site, giving Zelaya direct control over how the coffee is processed after harvest rather than sending it out to a third-party facility.

This is the first coffee Bright Jenny ever purchased, dating back to 2015. That relationship has continued since, which says something about the consistency of what Santa Clara produces.

About Bright Jenny

Bright Jenny is a Vancouver-based coffee roaster. The roaster's connection to Santa Clara goes back to their earliest days in 2015, when this Guatemala lot was their first-ever green coffee purchase. That kind of long-term sourcing relationship is relatively uncommon and reflects a preference for working with producers over time rather than rotating through new origins each season.

Their sourcing focuses on coffees with traceable farm-level stories, and the Santa Clara relationship is a good example of how they operate: returning to the same producer year after year rather than treating origin as a marketing detail.

"Bright Jenny is another roaster we love for how seriously they take their craft without taking themselves too seriously. The result: a panel of excellently roasted and delicious coffees that fit a broad set of tastes. The owner (Dave Upshaw) himself considers their dark roast, Smoke & Mirrors, among his favourites, to which Dave says: "yes, coffee nerds are allowed to like dark roasts.""

- Dean, Director of Coffee