The Co-ops We Work With
Guatemalan
Farm: Acodihue
Process: Washed
Elevation: 1400-2200 MASL (Meters Above Sea Level)
Region: Huehuetenango
Farm Info: ACODIHUE is a Fair Trade and Organic certified organization established in 1996. The cooperative is made up of top-level associations and community committees representing the individual producers. ACODIHUE promotes respect for their specific differences, such as rural life, diversity of cultures, gender and religious beliefs.
Specifically, ACODIHUE is focused on poverty reduction and food insecurity of it's members. It contributes to projects co-financed by international and national organizations in the areas of health, education, food security, gender equity, agricultural production, and restoration/conservation of the environment.
ACODIHUE serves 16 municipalities in the department of Huehuetenango, two municipalities in San Marcos, and two in Totonicapán. Over 40,000 farmers are members of this Coop.
ACODIHUE's coffee comes from 71% of indigenous women coffee producers in the mountainous territory of Cuchumatanes, Huehuetenango, with an average altitude of 1,500 meters (4,920 feet) above sea level. They utilize a traditional way of processing: natural fermentation, manual selection and drying in the sun.
Region Info: Huehuetenango is located in Western Guatemala bordering Mexico. It is extremely diverse and known for producing some of the best coffees in Latin America due to its climate, altitude, water sources, and traditional varieties. A range of offerings come out of Huehuetenango, including chocolatey volume offerings and fruit-forward microlots.
Washed Processing Info: The Washed process varies greatly across the growing regions of Guatemala due in large part to the different terroir and terrain that exists from place to place there, but for the most part the primary difference in style is in the length of time that the coffee is allowed to ferment. Generally speaking, coffee is picked ripe and depulped the same or the following day, then allowed to ferment for anywhere between 12–48 hours, depending on the climate. The coffee is then washed clean of its mucilage and spread on patios or raised beds to dry.
Mexico
Association: CESMACH Cooperative
Process: Washed
Elevation: 1200-1750 MASL (Meters Above Sea Level)
Region: Chiapas
Association Info:
We've been sourcing coffee from the south of Mexico in the state of Chiapas from a couple of different cooperatives, Finca Triunfo Verde (FTV) and Campesinos Ecologicos de la Sierra Madre de Chiapas (CESMACH), since the mid-2010s. The cup quality on these has been solid year after year. Both of these commercialize their coffee through a third party, allowing them to do what they do best—produce solid coffee. There is no reason why this area can't produce great coffee! They have all the conditions such as heirloom coffee varieties (Bourbon, Typica), great altitude (1200–1750masl), and passionate coffee growers who want to produce high-quality lots. The location is extremely close to the Guatemala border and Huehuetenango.
Cafe Imports, along with the cooperatives, invested in a quality-control program. An assessment was made in different areas that impact cup quality such as: varieties, fertilization, picking, processing, and lot selection. They were already doing a great job but there are some areas that could use some tweaking. The cooperatives were extremely excited to be part of this program. The plan is to have a certified Q Grader from each cooperative and have a centralized cupping lab to aid in lot selection in order to increase the overall quality of the coffee they are producing and give feedback to the producers on their quality.
CESMACH has nearly 500 active members and has been managed by Sixto Bonilla for the duration of our relationship so far. Sixto is very quality-focused and driven to empower his cooperative community with the tools and resources to produce better quality. We have collaborated with Sixto on several projects, and look forward to working closely with him in the future as well.
The farms of both CESMACH and the FTV are located in the buffer zone of El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve, which is in the highlands of the Sierra Madre. it is one of the most diverse forest reserve areas in the world and contains Mesoamerica's largest cloud forest, as well as a protected natural environment for thousands of plant and animal species. All of the coffee produced here is shade-grown.
Region Info: Chiapas is the southernmost region of Mexico. The mountains of this region span into bordering Guatemala and much of this tropical forest is the protected Triunfo Biosphere Reserve. This area is humid and tropical, inhabited by small communities of producers who have formed cooperatives to gain stronger representation in the coffee market. These producers take pride in their land, growing coffee organically through methods passed down from generation to generation.
Washed Processing Info: As is common throughout Central and South America, coffees in Mexico tend to be processed as Washed lots. While the details may vary from place to place, typically the coffee is depulped the same day it's harvested, then given a 12–18-hour fermentation in tanks or buckets before being washed clean of mucilage and dried. Drying typically takes place on patios or in mechanical dryers.
Peru
Cooperative: Lima Coffee
Process: Washed
Elevation: 1600-1900 MASL (Meters Above Sea Level)
Region: Cajamarca
Program Info: Around 90,000 hectares of coffee farmland in Peru is certified organic, and it is one of the places with the highest percentage of certified-organic exported coffee in the world. It is estimated that 25–30% of the smallholder farmers in Peru are members of democratically organized cooperatives and associations, making it easy to source FTO-certified lots.
Region Info: Though coffee arrived in Peru relatively early—in the middle of the 1700s—it wasn’t cultivated for commercial export until nearly the 20th century as demand from Europe rose due to a significant decrease in coffee production in Indonesia. British presence and influence in the country helped increase and drive exports. In the early 1900s, the British government took ownership of roughly 2 million hectares of land from the Peruvian government as payment on a defaulted loan, and much of that land became British-owned coffee plantations.
As in many Central and South American countries, the large European-owned landholdings were sold or redistributed throughout the 20th century. Farms became smaller and more fragmented, offering independence to farmers but also limiting their access to resources and a larger commercial market. Unlike many other countries whose coffee economy is dominated by smallholders, Peru lacks the organization or infrastructure to provide economic or technical support to farmers—a hole that outside organizations and certifications have sought to fill. The country has a remarkable number of certified-organic coffees, as well as Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, and UTZ-certified coffees. Around 30 percent of the country’s smallholders are members of democratic co-ops, which has increased the visibility of coffees from the area but has done little to bring incredibly high-quality lots into the spotlight.
As of the 2010s, Peru is one of the top producers of Arabica coffee, often ranked fifth in world production and export of Arabica. The remoteness of the coffee farms and the incredibly small size of the average farm have prevented much of the single-farm differentiation that has allowed for microlot development and marketing in other growing regions, but as with everything else in specialty coffee, this is changing quickly as well. The country’s lush highlands and good heirloom varieties offer the potential for growers to beat the obstacles of limited infrastructure and market access, and as production increases, we are more likely to see those types of advancements.
Washed Processing Info: The vast majority of coffee in Perú is Washed, and many producers own their own wet-milling equipment, though smallholders may also deliver cherry to a central processing unit or cooperative for processing. The coffees are usually depulped the same day they are harvested and given a 12–18-hour open-air fermentation before being washed clean of mucilage. (The fermentation time may be longer in cooler areas at higher elevations.) Drying styles vary in Perú, and coffee may be dried on patios, raised beds, in parabolic dryers, or mechanically
*Information provided by Cafe Imports