Blueberries in Guatemala? Truth or Hoax?

A while back, I saw an article on Facebook that Guatemala was now an exporter of arándanos to the United States. The article showed a picture of blueberries. HUH? There are blueberries in Guatemala? And enough of them that they can be exported? I had to do more research on this!

Guatemalan blueberries!

First of all, the word for blueberry is not really well-defined in Latin American, probably because they're so new here. I have heard arándano, arándano azul (as opposed to arándano rojo, which is a cranberry), mora azul (blue blackberry), and even just spoken in Spanish with an accent, blooberi. You can read a bunch of people discussing this exact thing on this page.

This bag of trail mix shows how confusing things are when Spanish is not the same in every location.

In the picture above, the ingredients are actually just yellow raisins, peanuts, cranberries, blueberries, and cashews. But they had to put two different words for almost every ingredient. And they put arándaos for cranberries and then just "blueberry". Only one! Ha ha!

In Panajachel, I have only see blueberries frozen in bags in Sandra's grocery. I have not once seen them at the market. Asking around, I learned that blueberries are grown in the far north of Guatemala, near Huehuetenango. Mister Jon's restaurant serves blueberry pancakes with berries from Huehue. Yum!

The article about exporting blueberries says that they will be grown in hothouse farms in Chimaltenango, which is near the capital. Blueberries need a certain type of acidic soil that is not found here, so they are probably going through a lot of trouble to make them grow. Plus, I believe they need a freezing period as well. Not sure how they're gonna do that in the Land of Eternal Spring. 😁

I've posted before that Guatemala has blueberry-flavored pop (soda), which is both hilarious and delicious. They also have blueberry jam, blueberry-flavored candies, AND just today I discovered a limited edition Chapina popsicle that is blueberry flavor and made to look like the Guatemalan flag. Sweet!

Special edition Chapina popsicle. Chapina is colloquial for Guatemalan woman.
The package says "arándano" on the bottom left.

Look! It's the flag! (Minus the crest in the middle.) It was quite tasty.

My Canadian friend has said to me that she is planning a trip home deliberately during blueberry season so she can gorge on them. When I went to Florida, my sister bought me fresh blueberries that I devoured with gusto! Somethin' about those little blue orbs that is just super yum and so Canadian. Tastes like home.

Now I've got to go and find out where that darn blueberry farm is...and if they have an outlet store! 😊