Time line: June 2003,Portland, Oregon

Jose Angel teamed with me, Michael Watson and together we formed Sierra Alta de la Costa Sur Specialty Coffee, LLC to market the coffee beans grown on theAbrica family farm in Chanquiahuitl, Ejido Ayotitlan, Mexico.

After a year of research and study, both Jose and I went to West Central Mexico to help harvest the coffee beans with his family. Some of the plants he recalled planting 10 years prior. Some Arabica bushes on the Abrica farm are over one hundred and fifty years old and still produce.

I was going on a working vacation.

Arriving in Mexico I found conditions worse than I had thought. Farmers working hard dawn to dusk for less than three pesos a kilo for coffee cherries, out of which the pickers were paid. But for them just hearing that their son and a gringo were interested in their coffee and coming down to visit was enough to inspire them to work on, just in case their big break was coming.

Around that time

Fresh Cup magazine was holding the NASCORE coffee trade show in Portland, Oregon, so we invited some coffee farmers to take part in the booth and to exchange ideas with their peers in the coffee industry, to witness first hand the fervor about good organic coffee. Excitement filled the hills in anticipation although spirits were still very much dampened by the seemingly endless downward spiral the coffee market was experiencing over the past ten years.

Getting the finances to pay for the exhibitors' booth, the travel expenses for the farmers to come to Oregon, visas, food and lodging was not easy but we did it!! Donations were solicited from various organizations, private coffee houses and individuals interested in helping.

Xavier Figueroa Orozco a coffee grower co-op member and local communitarian from Cuautitlan made it to Portland and to NASCOR that year.

It was a trip that proved beneficial to all the coffee growers in Sierra Manantlan; for from this trip was born a new processing facility for the Union of Cafetaleros Selectivo de la Sierra de Manantlan. The facilities are located in Chancol, a center for the indigenous people of the region.

This story really begins in the 1970's-1980s

When the powerful Mexican drug cartels forced the farmers into slave labor conditions the young boys did not get to go to school for they were needed in the fields to grow raw opium that was processed for heroin production.

Jose was taught math by his mother using a jar full of beans. He had no shoes he remembers. This went on for years until the Mexican government banished the cartels from the area and encouraged the farmers to plant more coffee to increase the production of legal crops. The coffee crisis was also getting under way with historically low prices for green coffee beans worldwide.

The "desperate men do desperate acts" mind set seemed to rule as farmers would put the plots their family had worked for generations up as collateral for $1,200.00 to $2,000.00 needed to pay the "coyotes" to smuggle them across the border into the United States. We've heard the horror stories of semi tractor trailers packed with people being locked and left in the scorching deserts of the southwest killing most if not all before they are found. Many were coffee farmers.

The collateral loan on the farm comes due, the farm is lost and the family disappears into the impoverished outskirts of the major cities of Mexico.

A Man in search for his personal power

Jose Angel was one who left home to find the good life beyond the frontier to the north. And he found the Mexican /American Dream. A wife who bore two beautiful boys, a good job and the opportunity to make enough money working as a roofer in the construction field to support his family in the USA and to send money each month to his family in Mexico.

As can happen; things began to change for him. Being blamed for crimes he did not commit cost him his job for a company he helped start. But with no immigration papers he could not go to the authorities. Home life got harder without his good job and he sent his wife and boys to her relatives in California, just until he could get back on his feet. Obsessed with the shame he felt because he could no longer support his families in California .and in Mexico he lost contact and became estranged from both.

By happenstance I took interest in Jose and offered to help in some way his situation. He was more concerned about his family than himself and to the point of distraction he worried silently that perhaps he may never see his family again. He wrote his wife and boys almost every day but never mailed the letters.

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Boyhood Memories

Jose told me stories of back home how magical and great his Mother and father are, and the mountains where he was raised he told me were enchanted. I needed to see first hand this place called Sierra Manantlan. I wanted to see what sounded to me like an impoverished paradise complete with the magic of Brujos, cattle rustling and wild west adventures.

On the road

Jose and I packed up and flew to Guadalajara, Mexico. Then we took a 2 hour bus ride from there to a State and city called Colima. Colima, Colima! In Colima Jose convinced a taxi driver that it wasn't too far to his father's ranch, just outside Minatitlan.

Two and a half hours later in complete darkness we get out and start walking, the taxi could only take us as far as the road went. From there we walked to his Mom's house, still up the hill a piece. When we reached his place of birth a one level low slung adobe block structure he woke his parents whom he had not seen for eight years.

What hospitality, from a sound sleep his mom awoke to building a small fire to brew us coffee on a wood cook stove affair. It seemed to be a growth protruding from the earthen floor only to blend back into the floor before the floor extended into and up the wall. A skin of earth was over everything. They had no complaints just so happy to see us. I knew then that I was along ways from Kansas, Dorothy.

I am not sure I slept that night.

In the morning

The morning brought my first experience of being not only a racial minority but the first white skinned outsider many of the children had ever seen. This was very humbling experience for me.

The mornings also brought the hustle and hurry of trying to document and understand this culture of the Aromatic One. I only had a week to capture all this and to form a marketing strategy for the coffee beans, after all that is why we came.

On horse back we rode off up the trails through the forested slopes and to the coffee growing areas. Before I knew it I was smack dab in the middle of more coffee plants than I imagined there were. The coffee bushes, protected and nourished by an over story of broad leaf shade producing trees of a strategic type planted in a strategic manner to benefit and coexist in symbiotic harmony with the insects, the animals, birds and people.

In the mountains

In the mountains of Mexico they call it life; in our civilized world it's referred to as "Biodiversity" Or "Sustainability".

In the mountains of Mexico there lives a hardy gentle people who have heard that in the USA a cup of coffee can sell for as much as $4.00 and there are coffee shops on every corner making huge profits from a product that at the grower level was almost a waste of time and energy to cultivate let alone pay to harvest it.

In the mountains of Mexico I never once heard children cry because they could not have something they wanted, yet these people have nothing more than the bare necessities.

One year later

I returned alone to Mexico and the farm of my most gracious hosts Querino and Josefina Abrica. It was great to see my friends again, Tio Pedro, who I liken to John Wayne and Javier Martinez, a kind gentle man who runs the nursery for the Cafe Chanquiahuitl Co-op.

Alicia, the President of Café Chanquiahuitl Co-op and her husband Crispin and daughter Shellie treated me as family feeding and housing me. They run the Mercado Disconsa, the only place for basic supplies save an hour and a half drive to town.

This year I spent two months with my friends, in addition, I was fortunate enough to meet Modesto Aguilar Arias, a local veterinary doctor who is also a member of Parota Cuata Co-op growing and processing Organic coffee beans, Honey, Oranges and Beef.

Have you ever tasted honey made from the pollen of the Arabica flower? Truly a treat to behold!

This year my new friend came north to Coffee Fest 2005 in Las Vegas, NV. representing Parota Cuata Co-op in the Sierra Alta Coffee booth.

Our intentions are to keep putting the coffee beans and growers out there to gain name familiarity and to let the coffee consumers discover for themselves how good this coffee is from a region of Mexico called The Sierra Manantlan Biosphere Reserve.

We are growing

Sierra Alta Coffee now has an office in Minatitlan, Colima, Mexico. Minatitlan is the gateway to the Sierra Manantlan Biosphere Reserve. A relatively undiscovered and unexplored region of Mexico for many North Americans.

This area is so conducive to Eco-travel that a group of the locals led by a fearless woman, Susana, are establishing a company to offer tours of the coffee growing farms in the area. With rustic cabanas for lodging and authentic Mexican meals flavored with the local culture for dining these tours constitute a true cultural emersion life experience.

Other sight seeing and participation tours are in the making. A perfect side trip if you're vacationing at Manzanillo Beach, a resort area on the Pacific Coast only 45 minutes away.

There will always be more to a story like this one!

Please visit our web pages at

www.lacostasur.com

NEWS FROM THE FIELDS: _________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This year marks the completion of the processing facility at Chancol in the Ejido de Ayotitlan. The hard working Xavier Orosco and others of the Rural Development Department of the government of Cuautitlan, Jalisco and his untiring efforts as a true Communitarian working to improve the plight of the indigenous people and the Sierra Manantlan Biosphere Reserve has brought this great accomplishment to fruitation. Last year he traveled up to Portland, Oregon to attend the NASCORE convention last year, Sierra Alta provided an exhibitor booth to show and give the attendees a sample taste of this coffee. We did generate enough interest and attention to persuade the government of the State of Jalisco to donate the money needed to complete a first class processing facility for the Union de Café selectiva de la Sierra Manantlan. Sierra Alta de la Costa Sur Coffee feels the pride of pitching in to accomplish this dream of those people. This year we visited Chancol for meetings with the State Officials and finally to witness the installation of the new equipment and demonstration of it working. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

La Parota Cuata co-op is a first class operation we found hidden in the mountains behind the small town of Minatitlan, Colima. Nested at the foot of a high peak in the community of Convento (pop. 26) they produce, in addition to the cleanest top quality 100% Arabica Altura, Organic Honey and Organic Beef that could almost make a Carnivore out of a Vegan. They are working on a honey made predominantly of Arabica flower blossoms. We look forward to this true specialty product for the flowering cycle of coffee is very short. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ While down here in Mexico this year we have met with many farmers and reserved such a wide variety of delightful tasting beans. A group of women in Cerro Prieto who have small batches of fresh beans dried in cherry form (capulin). Some coffee aficionados enjoy the unique sweetness this acquires from allowing the pulp a longer time to interact with the bean. So for a real distinctive flavor treat we purchased a few quintals of these for you. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Also in this years purchase is several bags (60 kilos each) of Pulped Natural beans from Café Chanquiahuitl co-op which possess’ a sweet medium bodied cup. We have also reserved considerable amounts of Wet-Processed beans or Prime Washed , producing a cleaner, brighter and fruitier cup from a new processing facility in the tiny coffee growing community of Convento. Watch this name become a commonly requested coffee house brand. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ We are always looking for new exciting regions to explore in search of those hidden and often overlooked "Treasures of the Sierra Madre". We attempt to expose to the world coffee plantations and farms which are being left out of circulation due to the "big names" in the coffee buyer world who have got the public stuck on their pet brands. The coffee drinking public owes it to themselves to join us on the quest for the obscure, not in the forefront farmers who continue in their struggle of life sustenance and recognition of their hard work to maintain a sustainable existence for their children to be proud of . Teaching them to love and respect thier environment. All of the coffees featured by Sierra Alta Coffee is Certified Organic and Shade grown by grower co-ops producing on 5 hectares or less, paying all help above local wages for their work. Join us for a cup of coffee you’ve never tasted before. Samples will be provided for wholesale companies who would like to share with their customers an exquisite new taste treat on Sierra Alta for the betterment of the small grower and their community enrichment programs. Sierra Alta only keeps enough proceeds for operating costs with the remainder going to the unions, co-ops and community projects helping the children with educational opportunity, food and clothing. We are a transparent organization and our books are open to interested qualified parties in the industry.