Ernesto Perez & Coatepec Community Do Things Differently

One thing we love about growing our work in Mexico is how different the subregions are, whole origins unto themselves. We’re excited to bring some new offerings from Veracruz, an origin unique in several ways. First, a major distinction from much of Latin America: instead of buying and selling parchment, Veracruz producers buy and sell cherry, processing centrally at mills. Ernesto Perez’s Finca Fatima is both a farm and a mill, and all three of the Veracruz lots we bought this year were processed there, including of course Ernesto’s own.

Producing in tiny subregion Coatepec, Ernesto’s coffee, and that of his community, is special. Coatepec has some of the highest latitude coffee on the globe: just like high elevations yield slow cherry maturation due to cooler weather, Coatepec pushes the northern edge of the tropics, where cooler, slightly wetter weather and long, cool nights during the harvest slow down cherry ripening, creating an incredible density of flavor. Combined with varieties like Typica, Garnica, Marsellesa, and Caturra and meticulous processing, these coffees have notes of Meyer lemon, apricot, lush red berry, cherry, and lemongrass. 

A younger farmer taking over the family farm and mill, Ernesto wants to help move his community production into high quality specialty, tweak processing, focus on microlots, and help those around him make a little more money on their work. Ernesto’s coffee placed super high in 2018 and 2019 COE and was used by the 2019 Mexico barista champion. This year, he decided to expand his own wet mill into APG Coffee, a micro wet mill that other smaller farmers in Coatepec could use. APG also offers agronomic consulting for other farmers to help rebuild soils, increase quality, and overall help the community of Coatepec do their best work and make as much money as possible. This year, Ernesto’s coffee brings malic tartness of green apple, sweet spice, and rich honey. 

The other producers we’re featuring from Coatepec are Enrique Toss and Jose Cienfuegos. Enrique’s coffees have a super saturated dry fruit sweetness like raisin and date as well as substantial sugar browning like chocolate, candied pecan, and heavy caramel. Jose’s bring bright, juicy complexity like raspberry jam, dried strawberry, lime zest, and amber honey.