Guatemala - Raúl Solís Paiz

We’re excited to finally have these coffees in our hands. This moment feels like the start of something much bigger and I truly hope it marks the beginning of a long relationship.

The story.

This coffee comes to us through our friends Kati and Adam of Reprise Coffee. Raúl Solís Paiz is Kati’s second cousin. His mother, Thelma, was Kati’s grandfather’s sister. She married Rolando Solís, Raúl’s father, a man whose impact on coffee in the Esquipulas region of Guatemala is hard to overstate. Rolando was a pioneer. He didn’t just grow coffee, he gave other farmers the seeds and the capital to do the same. He built a mill. He created opportunity. He helped turn Esquipulas into a coffee-producing region. At one point, he owned more than 300 acres of coffee-producing land.

But as with so many stories in coffee, time brought change. Commodity prices shifted. The climate became more volatile. Labor became harder to find. After Rolando passed away in 2019, his three sons inherited what was left of the farm, now just 30 acres. Raúl’s portion is called Finca Tizaquín, and it’s a true labor of love.

Raúl hasn’t had an easy time keeping the farm going. In fact, it’s been operating at a loss for several years. But he didn’t give up. He started thinking outside the box. He planted Gesha and Pink Bourbon, varieties that don’t make sense in the commodity market, but hold deep value in the world of specialty coffee.

Along with Big Shoulders, the other roasters taking part in this project are:

Reprise

Theory

Royal Flamingo

Koine

CJ’s

Haven

And let me tell you — it almost didn’t happen.

The challenge of connecting producers to market is real and it almost convinced Raúl to give up, rip out the Gesha and Pink Bourbon and return to commodity coffee. But fast forward to 2025, and we’re back in Guatemala. Eight roasters from across the U.S. traveled there for the Golden Bean World Series, and we made a point to visit Finca Tizaquín.

What we saw floored us.

The care, the craft, the sheer heart in every inch of that farm, it moved us. It inspired us. This is the kind of story that, if you read it in a novel, you might not believe it. But it’s true. We were meant to meet. Meant to connect. And now, it’s our job to share Raúl’s coffee with you and with roasters across the country.

The Natural Pink Bourbon is a wonderful expression of variety, place, and process.

It’s wild. And maybe that’s the theme here a little wild, a little unlikely, and completely full of the randomness that is life.

Thanks for being part of this journey. We’re just getting started.