Mexico Nayarita (Natural)

This highly sustainable naturally processed Mexican coffee is a favorite amongst our customers; it is the only offering that we've had since the very beginning of Velton's Coffee, back in December of 2007.

Tepic, Nayarit State, on the west coast of Mexico above Guadalajara, has a near-perfect microclimate for coffee and many other agricultural products.
El Cuarenteño is a rural community located in the foothills of Sierra de San Juan, just west of Tepic. The area was initially settled in 1910, established as the center of a wealthy landowner's farm. Several years later, the owner received petitions from his workers wanting to buy pieces of his land, but he declined their offer preferring instead to lease the property. In 1939 the Mexican government passed an agrarian reform resolution allowing the formation of Ejidos*. The following year the community of El Cuarenteño was granted an endowment of 3,500 hectares to form their own Ejido.

The community of El Cuarenteño produces both organic and conventional coffee. CAFESUMEX has relationships with three different societies in the community: PROCAA, BASILIO, and RIVIERA, two of which have their own wet mill processing facilities. Currently El Cuarenteño has about 840 hectares of coffee in production at altitudes between 900 and 1400 meters (2900 to 4600 ft). The landscape provides a beautiful panorama and breathtaking views of the famous “Three Marias Islands” on the Pacific Ocean.

*An Ejido is a community comprised of communal lands designated for agricultural production. Each Ejidatario (joint land owner/farmer) has individual rights to a parcel of land or parcela, these rights can continue indefinitely and be passed on to their children, as long as the land is under consistent cultivation. With its ideology dating back to the calpulli system of the Aztecs, the Ejido system was established by the Mexican government in 1934. The establishment of an Ejido would begin with landless farmers who typically leased lands from wealthy landlords petitioning the government. The government would then consult with the landlord, and redistribute the land if the Ejido was approved. The Ejido would then be established, designating the original petitioners as Ejidatarios with individual rights to the land. Each Ejido is registered with Mexico's National Agrarian Registry (Registro Agrario Nacional). The Ejido system was eliminated in 1991, citing low productivity of communally-owned land. While existing Ejidos were not disbanded and remain to this day, it is largely viewed that their elimination was a direct result of the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) of 1994.

History of Coffee in Mexico

With seeds from the Caribbean, cultivation began in Veracruz, where custom house records indicate a few hundred bags of coffee were exported as early as 1802. But these exports were apparently anomalous because after 1805 coffee would not be exported again for twenty years, after the war of independence. Production did increase over this period, presumably for domestic trade and consumption. In 1817, a planter named Don Juan Antonio Gomez started “intensive cultivation” further south, where coffee thrived at high altitudes. By 1826 there were half a million trees in Cordoba and Mexican coffee was being exported. In 1828, seeds—or possibly plants—from Arabia (Yemen) were planted in Uruapan, near the Pacific coast west of Mexico City, by Jose Mariano Michelena. Trees were brought from Guatemala to be planted in the southern state of Chiapas in 1847, and Oaxaca would become the third largest producer of Mexican coffee by 1889.

Growing Coffee in Mexico

Mexican coffee grows in 15 states throughout the southern half of the country but over 90% comes from four states: Veracruz, Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Puebla. Specialty coffee comes from the highlands of Veracruz on the gulf coast, the mountains of Oaxaca and Chiapas at the southern tip of Mexico. In Veracruz coffee grows from 1,100-1,660 MASL. In Chiapas coffee grows from 1,300-1,700 MASL. In Oaxaca coffee grows from 900-1,650 MASL. Coffee is grown by more than half a million farmers, 95% of these being smallholders cultivating less than three hectares and 85% of Mexico’s coffee farmers are indigenous Mexicans. Most Mexican coffee is grown under shade and Mexico is one of the world’s largest producers of certified organic coffee and Fair Trade coffee. Most Mexican coffee is Bourbon, Catura, Maragogype, or Mundo Novo, though other varieties can be found. Mexico grows almost no Robusta.