Mexico FTO Chiapas

We’ve been sourcing coffee from several different cooperatives in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, along the buffer zone of El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve, one of the world’s most diverse forest reserves. In the highlands of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, the reserve contains Mesoamerica’s largest continuous cloud forest, and is a refuge for thousands of plant and animal species.

Within this buffer zone is the Comon Yaj Noptic cooperative, which was founded in 1995 by a group of smallholder farmers from indigenous groups in the area. (Comon Yaj Noptic means “all of us think.”) Today there are about 160 producer members. The producers here have the advantage of many ideal conditions, including good altitude, obviously a very lush environment, and high-quality coffee varieties like Typica, Bourbon, and Caturra. The grower members are passionate about quality and even though this region is not always thought of for exceptional lots, there is strong microlot potential from the groups we’ve been partnering with here. The area is very close to the border of Guatemala and that country’s famous coffee region Huehuetenango: Some of the best of what we taste from those coffees is possible here as well. The organization earned its organic certificate in 2003 and its Fair Trade certification in 2009.