Cafe El Zapoteco is a group of some 180 coffee producing families led by Romulo Chavez in the Sierra Juárez. It is quite informally organised, but its community bonds run deep.

There is a huge potential for quality here and working closely with Romulo we aim to build a significant relationship with Cafe El Zapoteco and like-minded roasters.

Rather than employ pickers during the harvest, when a member’s coffee is ready to be picked, several neighbours will help the producer to harvest their coffee. Instead of payment, the producer whose coffee is being harvested is expected to cook lunch for everyone and in turn, to help pick the coffee of those who helped them when their coffee is ready.

Farm sizes range from 0.5 to 5 hectares but the average member has less than one hectare of coffee and produces between 100 and 150 kilos of parchment per year. The coffees are pulped and fermented, often in hand built, wooden tanks, then dried on petates, traditional woven mats.

Lotecitos, aka the teeny, super tasty coffees. We wanted to make sure that these teeny but amazing volumes made it in some tangible way to the specialty market. The resulting volume isn’t big enough to be described as a whole community’s blend, nor small enough to be considered as a one off microlot. These small harvests from some of the community’s producers score 86+, and so the Lotecitos (or tiny lots) were born. 

The Lotecitos are microlots in their high quality, whilst being a blend of coffees from several smallholders. Their cup score on purchase meant that high prices could be paid even for the low volume that each producer could provide.