Raúl Solis Paiz - [Gesha] [Natural Process]

Know Your Coffee: Finca Tizaquin - Gesha Natural - Raúl Solis Paiz

When Kati & I first started dating her Uncle Jorge asked me if I like dating Latinas. I nervously laughed & responded, “…I like Kati.” - & It has been a running joke ever since.

At the time, Reprise was just starting out & operated a tiny cafe within the Lake Forest Train Station - on the quiet side of town. We had an ambition to seek out coffees where we could curate a relationship between us & the farms we purchased from instead of being handcuffed to buying through importers. We felt, & still feel, that this is a more authentic way of doing business & made coffee more real to us.

Jorge talked passionately about their roots in Guatemala & the conversation naturally progressed to coffee. At the time, their family grew only commercial coffees - think large production lots that are mainly used for instant coffees & the like.

As we fast forward some years down the line, Kati & I had married and became life partners as well as business partners in Reprise. Together, we operate three bustling cafes in Chicagoland & have found a home in Evanston, IL where we feel confident in settling down to invest further into our community to build the coffee scene. The Specialty Coffee Association finally made its way to Chicago & I can’t really describe the feeling of how great it was to have this Expo in our hometown. This year.

Uncle Jorge is a person in our family that I hope everyone has. He’s the guy that’s always hosting family outings & making excuses to all be together. He does whatever is necessary to keep together. Regardless of everyones challenging lives & even sometimes met with reluctancy - I appreciate that he never quits.

The SCA Expo in Chicago along with Uncle Jorge - were catalysts to recconect with Kati’s family in Guatemala.

Within those handful of years since we last talked coffee, a lot had changed. Kati’s Great Aunt, Thelma & proprietor of the family farm had passed. She split the land into separate fincas & divided them amongst her three children - Raul, Rolando & Maria De Los Angeles

These farms were the first to ever plant coffee in the region of Esquipulas & later were commissioned by ANACAFE - the National Coffee Association of Guatemala - to grow high quality specialty coffee for their nationwide competition.

Raul took this challenge to heart. He planted Gesha seeds on the most fertile part of his land on Finca Tizaquin. Using banana trees for shade which also add essential nutrients for coffee plants creating a symbiotic relationship. He uses all natural fertilizers that he created himself & spent several years laboring love on these coffee trees until they were mature enough to produce coffee. 2023 was the first substantial harvest & proudly won 3rd place overall in Guatemala.

The biggest challenge for specialty coffee producers is finding a market that is willing to pay a fair price for an elevated product. Fair Trade certified coffees clock in under $2/lb for the raw product which is, in most cases, at or below the cost of production & doesn’t incentivize farmers to continue producing higher cupping varieties such as Gesha.

When roasters & farmers develop their own relationships together, we can identify which needs are essential to move the process forward & make coffee better. All in, it’s nothing short of a miracle when these factors align.

Today, we are excited to have achieved just that. While Raul has a passion for coffee beyond the commodified product - he was lacking the market to continue feeding that dream & decided he wouldn’t continue in the specialty coffee sector - That is, until we offered to purchase the entire Gesha lot & discussed how we can sustain his process for years to come.

Kati & I are excited to be apart of this experience & share it with you, our friends, who have been supporting this dream & mantra since we began a decade ago.

this year - fast forward to 2024/25 - luck would continue to be on our side. we have been competing in golden bean (the world’s largest coffee roasting competition) for 9 years now, never winning, until this year where we managed to sweep our competition yielding 4 gold medals & the overall championship. you can, for sure, call it luck - but it is uncanny at the very least, that the world series competition following the golden bean would be held in antigua, guatemala - 2025.

competitions have become more than just marketing & bragging schemes. we have made our most valuable friendships through this catalyst and that is ultimately why we decide to participate each year. we are competitors, sure. but perhaps we are all attempting to achieve a common goal by elevating the people that make our industry so special. the farmers, often get thanked last & with the least - but through golden bean we were able to connect with a passionate group that seeks to change this.

kati organized an entire transportation & housing itinerary to esquipulas with our group & we made the trek to finca tizaquin in a very remote part of the country.

raul was kind enough to host our entire group of 8 coffee roasters from around the globe. Theory (CA), royal flamingo (OH), koine (OH), cj’s (TX), haven (FL), big shoulders (IL) & white horse (AUS). These people I can proudly call my competitors & friends - a contrasting & rare sentiment that i believe deserves to be celebrated. without this group of people we would not have been able to forward contract raul’s entire specialty harvest. we owe a bit of gratitude to terra negra specialty in guatemala city (they consequentially have a cafe, parcela, near kati’s uncle’s house & you should go visit!). cristy, from terra negra brought the coffee into the u.s. for us & was kind, transparent & generous enough to make all of this possible to begin with. this year, you can expect 3 different lots from raul, washed-process gesha, natural process gesha & natural-process pink bourbon.

THE COFFEE: This Natural Process Gesha is a full production of just a few hundred pounds.

The flavor profile exceeds our standard of what we consider to be Specialty Coffee. Clocked-in at 90+ points - we offer you some of the very first of its kind: Gesha from Finca Tizaquin.

Expect jammy notes of Blackberry & raspberry, jammy notes of apricot & other stone fruits with a lively green apple acidity to bring it all together.