Farm: Grupo de Agricultores Positivos S.P.R. de R.L. (GRAPOS)

Varietals: Típica, Marsellesa, Bourbon

Processing: Fully washed & sun dried, then decaffeinated using the mountain water process

Altitude: 700 to 1,600 metres above sea level

Owners: 2,708 smallholder producers

Towns: El Porvenir and Llano Grande

Region: Chiapas

This is a beautiful smooth and sweet decaf from the mountainous Chiapas region in the southern reaches of Mexico. Here, the soil and climate are ideal for quality coffee production. We’re enjoying the sweet red apple flavour and lingering notes of chocolate and raisin. This coffee is decaffeinated using the Mountain Water Process, which is 100% natural and retains the flavour of the beans.

Chiapas is one of the five Mayan States in Mexico. Throughout the Chiapas region, and specifically in the El Porvenir and Llano Grande municipalities, there are collections of smallholder producers growing coffee in the rich upper reaches of the mountains. The GRAPOS organization was set up in 2007 to enable these producers to enter the speciality market through technical assistance, free seedlings and other educational programmes. Today the group is comprised of nearly 3,000 producers, a third of whom are women.

The producers live in remote farms, making communication and travel quite difficult – so GRAPOS provides the necessary assistance to the producers, making it easier to deliver and sell cherries. There are 8 collection centres throughout the area.

After the producers pick and deliver the coffee cherries, they are sorted for quality and pulped to remove the exterior skin. Once clean, the coffee is then fermented for 24 hours to breakdown the external mucilage. After fermentation is complete, the beans are washed and spread evenly on cement patios to dry in the open sun until the ideal moisture content is reached.

The coffee is then decaffeinated using the Mountain Water Process.