I want to share some reflections from our visit to Los Pinos. I won't cover the basics on this coffee here, so if you're new to Julia and her farm, read this first.
On our coffee farm trip back in November, we drove 10 hours from Toningo to Los Pinos. Puebla and Veracruz are divided by the Sierra Madre mountain chain. These two farms sit on opposite sides of it. Same altitude. Toningo faces the coast and grows in a rainforest. Los Pinos faces the Valley of Mexico and grows in a pine forest. Different trees, different soil, different fruit. Same mountain.
Julia, her husband, and a few farm workers came out to meet us. We had breakfast together. Her Cup of Excellence trophies were sitting right there on the table.
Los Pinos is the most sustainable farm we work with. The variety they grow is Oro Azteca (Aztec Gold), native only to Mexico. It was chosen for its natural resistance to the pests and fungi that kill coffee trees. No chemicals. The plant just handles it. The machine that depulps the coffee runs on leg power through a bicycle chain. The water used in the process to wash the coffee is treated and fed back into the soil.
Before we left, Julia asked me to plant a tree. It is a tradition she has with every roasting partner. They work with a couple roasters in the US, one in Australia and us (we are the only one in Europe).
While we have been roasting for two years, Julia's family has been growing coffee for generations. Gracias Julia.