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Oaxacan Coffee's Great Comeback

[coffee] Puerto Escondido was founded as a fishing village and a port for shipping coffee beans. By the 1930's, coffee had become central to the economy of the indigenous Chatino communities perched high above the coast in the Southern Sierra Madre.

Sacks of beans were hauled by mule teams down to the beach at the "Hidden Port" to await the arrival of a freighter to whisk them off to foreign markets. Coffee created prosperity for a few and subsistence for many but for decades there was relative stability in the world coffee market. All that changed in the '90s, when coffee commodity prices went into a freefall and the production of quality beans became economically infeasible.

To make matters worse, Hurricanes Pauline and Rick dumped tons of saltwater in the hills, rendering the soil all but useless. Now, a decade later, rising demand for specialty coffee, Fair Trade awareness and the marketing opportunities provided by the Web are perking up the prospects for Chatino coffee and the people who produce it.

Coffee arrived in Mexico from Cuba at the beginning of the 19th Century and was cultivated in the state of Veracruz. When the world market for cochineal dye collapsed with the advent of aniline dyes, Oaxaca looked to coffee as a possible substitute crop to replace

The first coffee farms were founded in the 1870's, in the area around el Cerro de Pluma, "Feather Mountain", in the Zapotec hill country above and beyond Pochutla.

As it turned out conditions in the Oaxacan coastal range couldn't have been better for coffee cultivation: the perfect altitude, warm coastal breezes, forested slopes to provide the necessary shade.

[coffee berries] Soon coffee production extended throughout the coastal range into the Chatino region extending up to Juquila. "Pluma" coffee is Mexico's best-known denomination of export coffee. The original Pluma region escaped the devastation wrought upon the Chatino plantations by the 1997 storms. Farms were abandoned and many agricultural workers joined the flood of immigrants looking for opportunities to the north.

The economic depression in the coffee economy - - prices dropped as low as 40 cents a pound - - meant that many who persisted in coffee raising had to eliminate costly chemical fertilizers and adopt organic production methods.

However producing high quality organic beans is very labor intensive and costly in its own right. For example, only the ripe, red cherries have the potential for producing top quality coffee, but not all the cherries ripen at once, so pickers must work same trees as many as three times a season. After picking there are other meticulously executed steps in bean processing, including soaking, pulping, fermenting, rinsing, sun drying, hulling and grading,

Organic. mountain-grown Chatino coffee, known by the denomination "Santa Catarina" or "Juquila", according to many experts, has surpassed Pluma in excellence. But how can growers get a fair price for their product and free themselves from dependance on the vagaries of world commodity markets?

[coffee] Four global giants - - Nestle, Procter & Gamble, Kraft Foods Inc., and Sara Lee - - dominate the industry by handling nearly 40 percent of the world's coffee. They purchase coffee in bulk and then roast, blend and grind it into supermarket brands such as Nescafe, Folgers or Maxwell House. Quality is not an issue for them, but maintaining low coffee prices is in their interest.

A surging consumer demand for organic products, including high-quality, specialized coffee, and the growth of the "Fair Trade" social movement could be the answer. Fair Trade seeks to educate consumers about the social cost the business-as-usual of international trade exacts upon developing countries in their exports to the developed world. It also attempts to direct buying habits to redress some of the inequities.

It's about ensuring that producers receive a fair share of the profits their goods generate in the marketplace. It's about empowerment and providing the resources needed for the social development of marginalized indigenous communities.

Some independent farmers and small grower cooperatives believe that to achieve these goals they must eliminate the gouging middlemen and develop direct access to the markets where organic, specialty beans fetch premium prices. Internet marketing is making all of this possible. There's a hard road ahead, but Chatino coffee shows all the signs of resurgence.

COFFEE SIDE BARS:

How It Began

ACCORDING TO THE LEGEND, it started in the middle of the 9th Century, when an Ethiopian goat herder named Kaldi noticed that his goats started acting frisky after eating the red berries of a local bush. He copped a handful himself and was soon frolicking along with his flock. Elsewhere in Africa the mashed beans were mixed with animal fat and eaten and fermented into wine.

Coffee as we know it was created in Arabia, where roasted beans were probably first brewed around A.D. 1000. By the 13th century Muslims were drinking coffee religiously, literally: With Islam's prohibition on alcohol, the "bean broth" was adopted with passion.

It wasn't until the 17th Century that Europe caught the coffee buzz: Just in time for the colonial expansion of the European powers trying to catch up with Spain and Portugal in creating overseas territories to provide cheap raw materials. Coffee is a hardy shrub - - apart from its susceptibility to frost - - and first the Dutch and then the French introduced it into their tropical territories.

Soon it spread throughout the Third World. From its humble beginnings as food and drink for African tribesmen, coffee has evolved into a global phenomenon of unprecedented proportions. More than 400 billion cups of coffee are consumed every year - more than any other beverage other than water.

Among natural commodities in international trade, coffee usually ranks second only to petroleum in dollar value. That's an amazing piece of action for a peanut-size bean whose sole purpose is to provide a virtually nutritionless beverage made mildly stimulating its caffeine content.

[lodge]

Finca Las Nieves

A Case Study

Finca las Nieves, 1,000 sprawling acres of wooded hillside, creeks and towering trees, situated 4,000 feet in the Sierra cloud forest, like many old coffee farms in the Chatino region, had been fallen into neglect, abandoned because it would have cost more to harvest the beans than the price they would have fetched in the market.

Enter the management team from the Hotel Santa: They purchased the farm two years ago and began the meticulous process of rehabilitation: Clearing brush, pruning, reseeding and today, Las Nieves is once again awake, producing superb, shade-grown Altura organic coffee, while protecting its fabulous heritage of forest and fauna.

[big motha tree] Not only that: An intimate, comfortable lodge is being created, with all the comforts of home - - thanks to the custom designed solar power system. Three rooms are already available for visitors, who can hike the miles of trails through the woods, enjoying spectacular views, colorful butterflies, exotic birds and plantlife.

You can savor the excellent coffee and learn about the entire coffee-raising process, as well as tour the nearby Chatino towns and villages.

Costs are $150 US per couple for lodging, meals, transportation and guide.
Information at Hotel Santa Fe: 582 0170 www.hotelsantafe.com.mx [finca walk]

What Makes a Great Coffee?


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