This FTO coffee has a taste that is mild and clean with lemon, cocoa and cashew flavors. It is grown by various smallholder members of CESMACH in Sierra Madre, Chiapas.
Until recently, the country of Mexico had never been a player in the High-End Specialty Coffee world. The perception of many in the industry was that Mexican coffee is mediocre to say the least, but now those ideas are shifting as more and more exceptional Mexican coffee makes it to market. There is huge potential in Mexican coffee and things will only get better. We've been sourcing coffee from the south of Mexico in the state of Chiapas from a couple different cooperatives, Finca Triunfo Verde (FTV) and Campesinos Ecologicos de la Sierra Madre de Chiapas (CESMACH). The cup quality on these has been solid year after year. Both of these commercialize their coffee through a thirdparty, allowing them to do what they do best—produce solid coffee. There is no reason why this area can't produce great coffee! They have all the conditions such as: heirloom coffee varieties (Bourbon, Typica), great altitude (1200–1750masl), and passionate coffee growers who want to produce high qualitylots. The location is extremely close to the Guatemala border and Huehuetenango.
Cafe Imports, along with the cooperatives, invested in a quality-control program. An assessment was made in different areas that impact cup quality such as: varieties, fertilization, picking, processing, and lot selection. They were already doing a great job but there are some areas that could use some tweaking. The cooperatives were extremely excited to be part in this program. The plan is to have a certified Q Grader from each cooperative and have a centralized cupping lab to aid in lot selection in order to increase the overall quality of the coffee they are producing and give feedback to the producers on their quality.
CESMACH has nearly 500 active members.
The farms of both CESMACH and the FTV are located in the buffer zone of El Triunfo Biosphere Reserv, which is in the highlands of the Sierra Madre. It is one of the most diverse forest reserve areas in the world, and contains Meso-America's largest cloud forest, as well as a protected natural environment for thousands of plant and animal species. All of the coffee produced here is shade-grown.