1 - Las Nieves - Mexico 2024 (Dry)

Finca las Nieves is in the Sierra Madre South Mountains of Oaxaca, two hours away from the
world class surfing destination of Puerto Escondido. The region was once renowned for coffee,
as indicated by the fact that Puerto Escondido was originally founded as a port town in order to
ship coffee from the surrounding mountains, but through the 20th century a decline in global
coffee prices and the remoteness of the region led many of the large farms to be broken up or
neglected.
Finca Las Nieves was founded in 1880 but had been largely abandoned for decades when we
established the cooperative in 2006.
Over the past eighteen years, it has slowly transformed using organic farming techniques and
equitable employment practices. We have planted various varieties of coffee plants such as
Gesha, Typica, Bourbon, Pacamara, Garnica, SL 28, Laurina, Tabi, and many more; while
working beneath and maintaining the existing old growth cloud forest. We strive to maintain soil
health, practice carbon sequestration and protect bio-diversity via regenerative management
(using crop diversification, various composting methods, biofertilizers all elaborated in situ).
Our focus has been on the regeneration of a historic coffee region while simultaneously
exploring ancestral and ground breaking organic agro-forestry cultivation and farming
techniques that accelerate biological processes and at the same time protects the water and
unique flora and fauna of one of the most bio-diverse areas of the planet.
The coffee is planted within a poly-culture of multi layered canopy’s that provide up to 80%
shade, the management of this forest is where true quality is born engraving the sweetness
and complexity of the coffee, due to various interesting and very technical reasons, providing a
cornerstone for an environmentally striving area. At Finca Las Nieves and surrounding areas
these methods invoke a subversive stride that mark a watershed were planting coffee is
synonymous to harvesting water, compared to full-sun monoculture crops that plant coffee and
dehydrate soils with a “perceived quality”.
Finca Las Nieves is an off-grid farm, with all of our energy coming from solar, hydroelectric
power and bio-diesel. The farm is blessed with various pure sources of mountain spring water,
we share this water with our neighbors and take our role as custodians of water, an
increasingly precious resource, very seriously.
We are a cooperative who believe strongly in creating decent jobs at competitive wages, and
work hard to ensure all members of the cooperative are valued and respected, as well as
benefit from our mutual success through profit sharing, and the sharing of agro-ecological
products that provide shade for the coffee.
We firmly believe in listening and sharing knowledge, experience and best practices with our
neighbors, and know that in a historically marginalized region where many families and
individuals have small cafetales, helping raise mutual consciousness about best farming
practices and increasing coffee quality is in everyone’s best interest.

For the post-harvesting it really comes down to treating the cherry’s with as much care as
possible, selectiveness, monitoring, and feedback in order to maintain the integrity of the
reflection of a live forest, while being custodians of our water and our future.
QUALITY BEYOND THE CUP, MEANS COFFEE IS SO GOOD IT EVEN GIVES US COFFEE
For a documentary on FINCA LAS NIEVES VISIT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A74-CtyRpU