Mexico

For nearly 20 years, we have been working continuously in Oaxaca to counter the widespread perception of Mexican coffee as pleasant but unremarkable—ideal for low-cost blends but not appropriate for higher-value single-origin offerings. The goals we set for ourselves in Mexico back in 2002 are no different from the ones we have applied in each of the other countries where we have taken our Direct Trade program since then: find partners who share our uncompromising commitment to quality, work with them tirelessly to create extraordinary coffees that defy conventional wisdom, create shared value, and push the frontiers of flavor together.

For more than a quarter century, CEPCO has established a reliable path to the marketplace for thousands of smallholder growers throughout Oaxaca. Its members are diverse. They come from every coffee-growing region and represent every indigenous group living in the southern Mexican state. They speak different languages and wear different traditional clothing. But there is more that unites them than divides them: a tireless work ethic, a relentless commitment to organic farming and biodiversity conservation, a fierce belief in collective action, and a stubborn faith in coffee as a vehicle of community development.

CEPCO was founded by leaders of popular movements in Oaxaca who were pressing for political and social change in a society marked by wrenching economic inequality and persistent marginalization of poor and indigenous people. They saw in coffee a vehicle for a sustained livelihood for the state’s poorest people—a powerful point of leverage for social organization, collective action, and progressive change.

Its leaders are unlikely capitalists, but they have presided over a long period of successful engagement with fair trade and organic markets in Europe and the United States. CEPCO’s success in creating market opportunities and securing price premiums for its members during the early 2000s, in the wake of a collapse in the global coffee market price, was instrumental in keeping Oaxaca’s coffee culture viable during a very difficult stretch of time.

The specialty coffee marketplace has expanded and matured since CEPCO was founded a generation ago, and quality standards are infinitely more rigorous. CEPCO understands that being competitive in today’s market requires more investment in cup quality than ever before, and we are collaborating to help the organization generate social returns on its investments in coffee quality.

Today, our work with CEPCO is focused on balancing its community development with the incentives for individual achievement that are central to Intelligentsia’s Direct Trade model. We believe that the greatest opportunities for smallholder farmers to participate in the benefits of specialty coffee lie here, at the intersection of market incentives for quality-based differentiation and social commitment to collective action.

Successful coffee farmers possess a clear vision, unrelenting determination, and an appetite for risk. Enrique López Aguilar needed all three attributes when he purchased Finca Chelín.

Originally founded in 1896, the farm reaches a maximum elevation of 1,800 meters. When Enrique first stepped foot on the property, no one had lived or worked the farm in almost a decade—vines covered the 30-year-old Pluma and Mundo Novo coffee plants, the roads were in disrepair, and the washing station was crumbling.

Enrique’s vision for Finca Chelín was simple: produce the best Mexican coffee in an environmentally friendly manner. The microlots coming out of the 123-acre Finca Chelín for the past few years prove that Enrique has achieved his vision. His success can be traced back to three crucial decisions he made nine years ago.

First, Enrique decided not to cut down any of the hardwood and fruit trees that shade the coffee, leaving a natural sanctuary for birds and other animals. As a result, Finca Chelín is a carbon-neutral undertaking that has preserved the forests that sequester carbon, recharge aquifers, and provide a habitat teeming with wildlife.

Second, Enrique supplemented the heirloom varieties that already existed on the farm with several other high-quality varietals, including Geisha. The Geisha variety is known to be more tolerant than other traditional cultivars of coffee leaf rust, a disease currently decimating producers in Oaxaca, and for producing stunning cup quality when grown under the right conditions.

Third, Enrique attacked coffee processing with extraordinary zeal. Each time we visit the farm, Enrique is running dozens of new experiments in fermentation, washing, and drying. At last count, Enrique was successfully managing an astounding 22 different post-harvest processes.