El Zapoteca is an association of 180 coffee producing families from three towns in the Sierra Juarez region of Oaxaca. The Sierra Juarez, as well as being the birthplace of Benito Juarez (Mexico’s first President of indigenous origin) is a temperate mountain range to the north of Oaxaca city.

Cafe El Zapoteca is led by Romulo Chavez. Romulo has been working for several years now to establish direct relationships with buyers in order to obtain higher prices for the producers of Cafe El Zapoteco. He has also fostered a very strong communal outlook for the association and its producers.

The single producer lots such as this one from Magnolia Vicente are a result of significant effort on the part of Raw Material's in-country partner Red Beetle and Romulo’s family to create more separation in the groups offering, to incentivise and pay higher prices for the best quality deliveries from individual producers. This is only possible through Red Beetle’s in-depth and direct feedback loop to producers for every sample received, providing physical and sensorial analysis of the sample, where that fits into their pricing scale and direct recommendations for improving the quality and therefore value of the coffee. Finally, this program also requires local QC in the community. This takes place at Cafe El Zapoteca’s newly constructed cupping lab, equipped with micro hullers, and sample roasters. These projects were funded in part by Raw Material and Red Beetle and through the long-term support of roasters who purchase from Cafe El Zapoteca.

Magnolia is 30 years old and has been working with coffee for 10 years. Her native language is Zapoteco but she also speaks Spanish. She has three fields in Santo Domingo Cacalotepec; the first is 0.05 Ha at 1250 MASL, the second 0.25 Ha at 1346 MASL, and the third 1 Ha at 1380 MASL. Five years ago she and her husband renewed her fields with the variety Geisha. Together they look after their coffee by clearing the weeds, making terraces and applying organic fertiliser (compost). Coffee is her only source of income and her earnings are spent on the family needs and to pay for workers who pick the coffee during harvest. She usually keeps 20kg of her coffee for the family and plants corn and beans for their own consumption.

Beautiful images courtesy of Alejandro Chavez and Jessie May Peters (Raw Material coffee).