Mexico – Carlos Cadeña – Natural Gesha

Carlos Cadena is a 5th-generation coffee producer in Cosautlan. His great-great-grandfather began coffee production in the 1890s. He was processing coffee cherries with wooden tanks at that time. Then gradually his family expanded by acquiring nearby farms, and currently Carlos, together with his family, owns 6 farms with a total production of approximately 3,150 quintales.

Around 2013-2014, rust disease attacked the Cosautlán region, and his father, also Carlos Cadena, needed to make changes to survive. They were producing coffee in traditional ways, which they thought would be best from their experiences, but after 2013, they started to investigate more scientific options with specialists. Nowadays, his farms could have a yield of more than 30-40 quintales when the weather is in favor of coffee growth.

For him, coffee isn’t “work” but a “hobby.” When asked, “What do you like to do in your free time?”, he said, “Cupping, and I like to do it every day.” Even though his family has a long history of coffee in Cosautlan, Carlos is the only one who keeps living in Cosautlan because he loves working in the coffee industry. All the others live in Xalapa, which is the capital city of the state of Veracruz.

He got interested in specialty coffee in 2018 when he noticed that some farmers were selling at much better prices than the market price. Carlos has been participating in the Cup of Excellence since 2012. This gave him familiarity with common ways to improve quality, but since 2018, he started to separate by variety to compare the cupping profile. At the same time, one of his customers shared information on different processes, such as Natural and Honey. Since then, he has been exploring different combinations of processes and varieties to achieve the best cup of coffee. That’s how he won 3rd place in the 2023 Cup of Excellence in Mexico and first in the 2024 auction in the experimental category.

He is also extremely focused on conservation and sustainability. Carlos tries to reuse and repurpose as much of the waste as possible from coffee production, including composting coffee pulp and building his water re-capture system to both conserve water and also irrigate the fields.

Finca Xilontla

Finca Xilontla has a total area of 85 hectares, of which only 60 can be cultivated, due to the rugged terrain. It’s located at 1350 masl and has varieties such as Gesha, Anacafe 14, Marsellesa, Colombia, Sarchimor, and a mixed-variety garden with six different varieties, including San Roque, San Isidro, and Java. It’s a relatively new farm; he’s been working it for four years, and it’s his newest farm. As a curious fact, it also has an abandoned hacienda on the riverbank… dating back approximately 200 years. He’s preserved it exactly as they found it.