About This Coffee
Café Sierra Azul is a small cooperative composed of around 200 smallholder farmers living within the El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve in Mexico's Chiapas State. Sierra Azul means 'Blue Mountains' and comes from the tree covered mountains that are a dime a dozen in around the farms where cooperative members cultivate this coffee.
The Cooperative was founded in 2010 with the goal of improving livelihoods in coffee growing communities across the municipality of Siltepec. They also are committed to producing the best quality, certified specialty coffee. Starting with just 37 producers, the group has gone only continued expanding in size and achievements including gaining multiple organic certifications, Fair Trade certification and establishing relationships with buyers around the world.
Sierra Azul's founding principle was to improve livelihoods by enabling members to earn more for their coffee. Today, instead of selling their coffee for low or erratic prices to local buyers, members from 14 communities are earning higher prices and have secure markets for their production. They also benefit from a wide range of social programs that the cooperative has initiated.
Cultivation
Unusually, for Chiapas, where Coffee Leaf Rust (CLR) has decimated many traditional smallholder plots, Sierra Azul members focus on traditional varieties such as Typica, Mundo Novo and Bourbon. In order to maintain the health of plants, renovation and shade control is highly encouraged and supported by the cooperative.
The majority of members have their own small nursery where they grow seedlings using the best cherries from the previous year's harvest. Sierra Azul conducts trainings on establishing nurseries, seedling maintenance and planting, and wide range of pruning methods that ensure optimal health for coffee trees. These activities enable members to grow high quality, traditional varieties without resorting to chemical pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers.
The cooperative also runs a centralized nursery where they trial new varieties, such as Geisha, and conduct a wide range of farmer trainings. Here, they also conduct experiments on organic controls for CLR. They have already seen significant improvements in yields amongst their producers by utilizing some of these methods.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
Each member of the cooperative has their own wet mill or shares one with a family member living nearby. These mills are most frequently on the farm itself, which can be anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours from the producers' homes. Despite these distances, coffee is always selectively handpicked and then pulped on the same day.
After pulping, coffee will be fermented in small tanks or buckets for about 24 hours before being washed in clean water to remove all traces of mucilage. All water used in the pulping and processing is filtered so as to prevent water contamination. All coffee pulp is used as compost.
After washing, coffee is moved to drying patios where it is raked regularly to ensure even drying.
Coffee in Mexico
Mexico is one of the largest exporters of certified Organic and Fairtrade coffees. Smallholders with less than 10 hectares compose a full 70% of Mexico’s coffee producers. Since the 1990s, producers have largely been successful at forming cooperatives that sell certified coffees and help them gain market access to garner higher prices.