Royal.Coffee.Travel

I go to Mexico every year in late April to check in on our suppliers of fine Mexican coffee and see if they have any surprises in store for us as they wrap up the harvest. Last week I made it to both Oaxaca and Chiapas, visiting all of our main sources. Following is my brief field report and shopping guide.


Oaxaca – Days of Coffee and Mezcal

My first stop in Oaxaca was at “La Casa de la Tia”, a small hotel owned by Don Alberto Perez, a.k.a. the “Bearded Man”. I arrived a day later than planned thanks to storms and plane diversions. Don Alberto welcomed me with a jug of his homegrown mezcal to soothe my jangled nerves and general road wear. A large sprig of anise floated in the bottle. I dug right in. I was fine in no time. It was only noon.
In addition to owning a funky hotel and possessing lethal mezcal, the Bearded Man is also a coffee grower and the supplier of our 2 lots of Mexico Organic Pluma Real – La Cabana and El Olivo, recent arrivals in our warehouse. If you are into the “terroir” of coffee, these 2 containers are vintage Pluma, grown right in the heart of the region and featuring all of the Pluma trademarks – body, caramel, sweetness, bluish green cast to the bean, friendly acidity but more plush than bright. Plenty still available.

Next stop was the dry mill beneficio of Calvo Exports, our shipper of the Pluma Tres Oros conventional coffees. Like Royal, they are a family business, nimbly operating around the octopus tentacles of the multinational giants operating in Oaxaca. Their knowledge of the region and old family connections have allowed them to compete successfully in the area and access consistently fantastic and sweet Oaxacan coffees from dozens of medium sized estates still functioning in the area. We have a good stock of this coffee on hand and now feature a special delivery of a coffee put together from 5 specific farms selected by Jose Luis Calvo. Nothing like Pluma for easy drinking, sweet, big bean coffee.

I wrapped up the Oaxaca chapter of the trip with a visit to CEPCO, the Fair Trade Organic cooperative we have worked with for over 10 years. They have endured some internal conflict this past year, but have emerged healthy and are carrying on strong. An entire afternoon was spent cupping over a dozen coffees and these existing stocks taste great. Much of what I cupped there will comprise our April/May/June shipments set to arrive late May and June. Meanwhile, our first delivery of the year from CEPCO arrived at our warehouse in Oakland just recently, with excellent preparation and classic Oaxaca cup profile. Still 100 bags left SPOT. Hit it.

Lastly, I couldn’t write about Oaxaca without mentioning Fino Rojas. While I did not visit the Rojas family or their farm on this trip, I could feel the ghost of Don Guillermo every time I walked in his neighborhood. His legacy lives on in coffee – we just brought in a box of Fino last week. It hasn’t changed, still the big fat sweet soft coffee of yesteryear from those 80 year old tipica and borbon trees. We never know when it will be the last time we ever see this coffee, but you don’t need to be nostalgic to buy this lot; it is vintage Rojas and truly excellent coffee. Still around 200 bags left.

Chiapas – The grizzly hurricane aftermath

From Oaxaca, I traveled to Chiapas on one of those famous all night buses. They played a movie in Farsi with Spanish subtitles about living amongst the Taliban in Afghanistan. Who needs Die Hard 4? Anyway, I went to Chiapas to visit with our number 1 supplier in the area – Union de Ejidos Professor Otilio Montano – UDEPOM. UDEPOM is a small grower cooperative with some 600 members or so, operating since the early 90’s out of the southern Sierra Madre Mountains near Motozintla. Unfortunately, their idyllic little setting happened to be directly in path of the last October’s Hurricane Stan. Stan parked itself over the region for nearly 3 days dumping over 2 feet of water during its stay. The effects of the storm were in evidence everywhere, 7 months after the fact – mangled bridges, blown out buildings near river courses, massive scars in the earth from slides, and roads still nearly impassible.
The storm hit just a month before the harvest was to begin. Virtually every UDEPOM member suffered to some degree, losing either patches of land to the slides, damaged coffee trees, and in some cases their entire houses were washed away. Meanwhile, the processing facility of the coop, located on the outskirts of Motozintla, was completely flooded as a nearby river altered its course and swept through the mill. All of their coffee bags were washed away and the plant was filled chest deep in mud, damaging all of their processing equipment and destroying their electrical capacity. They were able to re-establish their mill on a site just up the hill, but the facility is fairly basic and it appears their processing abilities have suffered slightly due to the setback.
Still, UDEPOM, marches on and continues to ship us kick ass coffee. As noted above, we have seen a slightly higher defect count in some of the deliveries due to the temporarily compromised processing facility, but the coffee itself remains top notch. UDEPOM is one of the pioneers of the organic coffee movement in Latin America. Their internal standards on organic coffee cultivation and processing are strict and well followed. All organic coffee growers must grow under a diverse and well managed shade cover, all must wet process their own coffee and all must have cement fermentation tanks and sun dry their own coffee on cement patios. The farms range in size from 1 to 9 hectares, with some farms growing at nearly 1700 meters. All of the coffee is Bourbon and Tipica.
Our relationship with this cooperative is incredibly strong. We’ve done all we can to help them get back on their feet in the aftermath of the hurricane, from sending down relief funds, to pre-financing their harvest, to paying over Fair Trade minimum pricing for their coffee. Why? Because these are great people and they send us great coffee. If you don’t show you care and truly recognize the good and hard work they are doing, why should they carry on? Growing coffee is damn hard work, and with world wide inflation, costs of petroleum, weakening of the U.S. currency, paying Fair Trade pricing is a token act at best at reimbursement. Heck, if I had to deal with hurricanes, lousy roads, no electricity, and low coffee prices, I’d try my luck as a day laborer in L.A. too.
Okay, enough morality and politics, let it be known our friends at UDEPOM are alive and well. While their production is down a little and their processing ability is slightly embattled for this season, their coffee rolls in well. If you are looking for verified shade grown, sun dried, bright, sweet, cinnamon, raisin, oranges, etc. organic coffee, go for UDEPOM. We’ve got about another month or so of shipments from these folks. Thus far we’ve struggled with keeping their coffee available SPOT, so please plan ahead. Talk to your salesperson and book it for the summer and fall now. This is a coffee and a cooperative well worth supporting, and it will only get better as they rebuild.
----John Cossette