Mexico Ruben Cervantes - Filter

Excited to release our first of two natural micro-lots from Mexico this year! 

This coffee is a perfect example of how these farmers Bio-dynamic approach create exquisite quality and delicious coffee while creating an educational and sustainable environment.

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• Producers + Mill:

Rubén Cervantes, a third-generation indigenous Mazatec coffee producer, began his coffee journey at 18, helping his father with cherry picking and fieldwork. Together with his wife Rosa Rubio and their children Citlali and Cristián, he has built a diverse operation that includes coffee farming, beekeeping, masonry, and growing various foods.

Situated in Loma Alta, Huautla de Jiménez, Oaxaca, the farms El Lodo and El Derrumbe are surrounded by a cloud forest, lush vegetation, and the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains, serving as the production centers for Rubén Cervantes' coffee.

Cervantes lives in a mountainous area, at altitudes between 1,200 and 1,400 masl, where he cultivates traditional varieties such as Typica, Caturra, Bourbon, and Mundo Novo. He is also introducing the Oro Azteca variety, which tends to be more resistant to leaf rust.

The farms, both covering one hectare, look like small jungles where coffee plants grow in a traditional polyculture system, known as traditional rustic or ´mountain´, which involves minimal intervention in the ecosystem.

This method enables coffee plants to grow alongside timber trees, legumes like cuajinicuil, and fruit trees like banana and citrus. These trees provide multiple layers of shade to the coffee plantations, protecting them from adverse weather conditions.

On the farm, they also promote growing milpa, an ancient system that mainly includes corn, beans, and squash.

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• Varieties:

Typica (also Tipica) forms the genetic backbone of much of specialty coffee today. The first coffee plantations grown in America and Asia were of the Typica variety and many of the most widely cultivated C. arabica crops today are descended directly from the plant.

In general, Typica is very similar in appearance to the Bourbon plant (of which it is a very close relative) although it has fewer secondary branches and the leaves are normally smaller than those of Bourbon. It is usually identifiable by its bronze leaf tips. The plants are tall (3.5 – 4m) and the berries have an elongated, oval shape.

Even though Typica has a relatively low yield it is known to produce coffee with high cup quality. It is, however, very susceptible to diseases and is becoming increasingly less common for this reason. (Info source: Mercanta)

Bourbon coffee variety dates back to the 1700s when French missionaries first introduced it on Bourbon Island in the Indian Ocean. The island is called Réunion today and the missionaries moved on to Latin America in the middle of the 1800s. It was first grown in Brazil around 1860 and cultivation spread from there throughout Latin America. Because the standard Bourbon variety is susceptible to coffee leaf rust, it does best at higher altitudes at or above 1,800 meters where leaf rust is less likely to occur. Bourbon produces a tall coffee plant, excellent coffee, and medium to low production. It much of Latin America, basic Bourbon has been replaced by offshoots such as Caturra, Catuai, and Mundo Novo.

But around Huila Colombia in the Andes Mountains, growers still specialize in growing Bourbon coffee and a cross-bred variety, pink Bourbon.Pink Bourbon gets its name from the fact that the ripe berries are pink instead of red. Coffee farmers around Huila, Colombia produce the variety by cross-breeding yellow and red Bourbon. It has greater resistance to leaf rust than either the yellow or red variety.

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• Process:

Once the cherries are picked at their ripest, Frida and her team at Terra Coffea recommend the farmers a double fermentation of the coffee, first 24hours dry in cherries and then 24 hours wet fermentation. Before they are pulped they are floated to remove low density cherries.

Once pulped, the parchment is dried on patios for 20-24 days.

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• Region: Loma Alta, Mazatlan, Oaxaca 

• Producer: Ruben Cervantes 

• Farm: El Lodo and El Derrumbe

• Importer: Ensambles

• Price (green ex Shipping): £13.00 pkg

• Variety: Typica, Bourbon. 

• Process: Anaerobic Natural

• Altitude: 1200-1400 masl

• Amount Bought: 60kg

• Tasting: Fruity, Complex, Juicy, Medium Acidity, High sweetness

• Flavours like: Dried Pineapple, Papaya, Hazelnut chocolate,