Strictly High Grown Blend

Collection: Strictly High Grown Blend

All our coffess are strictly high grown but we've created this blend of caturra and catimor form a great foundation for espresso blends and darker roasts. The caturra when given time to develop provides a subtle bitterness with notes of dark chocolate, tobacco, and citrus notes while the catimor lends a buttery, vanilla and light fruit flavors of blueberry and plum. 

What "Strictly High Grown" actually means

Strictly High Grown (SHG) is a Central American hardness grade, not a flavour note. It denotes coffee grown above roughly 1,200 metres, where cooler temperatures slow cherry maturation. The bean develops more densely, which is why SHG lots hold their structure through darker roasts that would flatten a softer, lower-grown coffee.

Every coffee we grow at El Quetzal meets the SHG standard by elevation. This blend exists for a different reason.

Why we blend Caturra and Catimor

This is a deliberate espresso foundation rather than a single-varietal showcase. The two components do different jobs.

Caturra, given time to develop in the roast, brings a subtle bitterness with dark chocolate, tobacco and a citrus edge that keeps the cup from going flat.

Catimor lends body — buttery, with vanilla and light fruit — filling in the middle where Caturra alone can feel thin.

Together they produce a base that is forgiving in the roaster and stable in the cup, which is what an espresso blend needs to be when it has to perform shot after shot.

Roasting and brewing

Built for medium through espresso roasts. It holds up in milk without disappearing, and it takes a darker development than most of our single-varietal lots without turning ashy.

Who buys this

Roasters: a dependable, repeatable base for a house espresso — the lot you build a menu around rather than the one you feature. Available in volume with consistent supply across the harvest.

Wholesale green coffee pricing and samples →

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