Coffea Diversa Sudan Rume — Rare Guatemalan Variety
Partager
An ancestral variety, a unique botanical garden, a Guatemalan volcano. The story of Sudan Rume — one of the rarest coffees ever cultivated.
Coffea Diversa — The world's largest coffee botanical garden
The story begins in 2003, in Costa Rica, in a remote area of the Biolley district. It is there that Gonzalo Hernandez founded Coffea Diversa with an idea that defies all commercial logic: to create a coffee botanical garden, dedicated not to mass production, but to the preservation of the genetic diversity of the species.
Today, Coffea Diversa is home to more than 800 varieties, mutations, and cultivars of coffee — the largest private collection in the world. While classic plantations cultivate a single variety over hectares (Caturra, Catuai, Bourbon), Coffea Diversa cultivates the opposite: a single terroir, hundreds of varieties. Like a flower garden where each species tells its own story.
Suchitan, Guatemala — The second garden
In 2011, Gonzalo Hernandez joined Jose Padilla to extend the project to Guatemala. Inspired by the original Costa Rican garden, the two enthusiasts sought the ideal microclimate to reproduce this diversity. They found it on the slopes of the Suchitan Volcano, in the Nuevo Oriente region, at altitudes between 1,500 and 2,000 meters.
The Suchitan Volcano offers an environment of rare consistency: mineralized volcanic soils, a tropical high-altitude climate, and a precise alternation of sun and nocturnal coolness. On these lands, Geisha, Laurina, Mokka, Bourbon Roi, Maragogype, Yellow Mon, and — of course — Sudan Rume can finally express their full potential.
Sudan Rume — A variety from another time
Sudan Rume (or Rume Sudan) is one of the most mythical Arabica varieties in the world. An ancestral landrace variety, originating from the Boma plateau in South Sudan, it was collected and then exported to Kenya, where it served as a genetic matrix for several modern varieties — including the famous SL-28, one of the great Kenyan coffee varieties today.
If Sudan Rume is so rare today, it is because of its low productivity. Where a Catuai yields abundantly, a Sudan Rume produces little — only a few cherries per coffee tree. This characteristic, unfavorable to the global market, led to its exclusion from commercial cultivation in the 1960s.
But what it offers in the cup more than compensates for its rarity. An aromatic signature that no other coffee can match.
Washed — Absolute purity
This lot was washed processed — the purest, most demanding process, one that requires perfect mastery of fermentation. The cherries are depulped immediately after harvest, the mucilage is removed in water tanks, and the bean is then dried slowly, bare.
The result is a crystalline cup, without fruit interference, where the variety speaks for itself. This is precisely what specialty coffee professionals are looking for: a washed coffee reveals the true genetic signature of a variety, without distorting it.
In the cup — Pure elegance
Coffea Diversa's Sudan Rume opens with a rare floral aromatic — orange blossom, jasmine, cherry blossom water. The palate reveals a citrus vibrancy (bergamot, Meyer lemon, mandarin), carried by a honeyed sweetness that balances the whole. The finish is floral, long, almost ethereal.
The acidity is lively without being sharp, structured by a natural sweetness. The body is light, elegant, never heavy. It's a coffee to contemplate rather than to drink.
Best enjoyed with a pour-over method — V60, Chemex, Kalita — to preserve each aromatic layer. As an espresso, it delivers a denser, citrusy and floral expression, reserved for connoisseurs.
More than coffee — A testament
To drink a Sudan Rume is to taste the very history of coffee. It is to encounter a variety that came from Sudan, traveled to Kenya, then to Costa Rica, then to Guatemala. It is to meet Gonzalo Hernandez and Jose Padilla, two guardians of a vanishing genetic heritage. It is to meet a volcano, soils, an altitude — and a bean, shaped by a thousand hands.
These lots are rare by nature. Each arrival is unique. Once exhausted, it is never reproduced identically.