About Patlanalan #5

Patlanalan is one of the most remote communities in Puebla. One of Patlanalan’s defining characteristics is that the center of the community holds one of the best-known lagoons in Puebla, the Patlanalan lagoon.

The predominant varieties in the area are Mundo Novo, Sarchimor, and yellow Caturra. During harvest, producers use family labor for all their work. Patlanalan producers co-plant coffee with native shade trees such as banana and ice cream bean trees.

The producing families of Patlanalan are usually segmented into those who live abroad and send monetary aid monthly to Patlanalan, and those who live in Patlanalan and receive help from their relatives abroad while producing coffee as well as corn, avocado, and lemon.

To get to Patlanalan, we first fly to the Veracruz airport and then travel by road for 8 hours. We then have to cross the border into Puebla to get to Patlanalan. As we approach Patlanalan, the first thing we see are the mountains that surround the lagoon. In the highest parts of these mountains we can see all the small farms that cover their slopes. The coffee producers of Patlanalan live far from their farms, in the lower area of ​​Patlanalan around the lagoon. Since the farms are located far from the houses, all coffee transportation is done via mule.

Currently, the producers of Patlanalan sell all their coffee in cherry (much like in Veracruz). In the past, producers in the area used to produce mostly natural coffees. But, the producers’ knowledge about proper management of the natural process was scant, so the results of these ended up being very low quality coffees.

The main reason why the producers of Patlanalan could only produce natural coffee was that the area in which they are located supplies water to the entire state of Veracruz. The risk of water contamination, which can occur when there is inadequate management of wastewater from coffee processing, was totally prohibited. The water sources of the area—the lagoon, rivers, springs and underground aquifers—are strongly protected.

Gradually, the producers learned to harvest and sell coffee in cherry, but even though quality improved they still received very low prices from opportunistic local buyers. Some producers left the area in search of buyers who could give them more clarity on whether their quality was bad as those local buyers told them, or if they had truly improved their quality by collecting in cherry.

On one of these trips, one of the producers contacted a buyer from Veracruz and this buyer put us in contact with producers in Patlanalan. The Red Fox team tasted these coffees over many sessions and determined that they were good, and that the lots that still did not reach the desired quality had potential for improvement if they harvested more precisely.

Since 2023, Red Fox has been buying these coffees and offering far better prices to Patlanalan producers, giving them clarity about the true quality of their coffees and honest, constructive feedback.