The Blog

view all

144. APECAFORM – Coffee between volcanoes

2011-04-11 Comments Off on 144. APECAFORM – Coffee between volcanoes

APECAFORM’s name tells you a lot about the organization’s members.  APECAFORM is the Maya-Mam Association of Smallholder Organic Coffee Farmers.  Its 472 members are Maya indigenous people who speak predominantly Mam, one of more than 20 languages spoken in Guatemala.  They are also smallholder coffee farmers committed to organic shade farming.

What the name doesn’t tell you – but the coffee does – is that they grow their coffee in one of the finest origins in the Americas.  Its members produce their double-certified SHB coffee in more than 20 communities on the slopes of the Tajumulco Volcano – Central America’s highest – and in the shadow of another, the Tacaná Volcano.  Its coffee is already of extraordinary quality.  The organization has just developed a network of four collection centers in the areas where it works and adopted new quality control measures to make its coffee even better.

 

Name: APECAFORM

Established: 1992

Members: 472

Location: Pueblo Nuevo, San Marcos

Elevation: 1400-1800 m

Volume: 3,286 sacks (69 kg)

Certifications: organic, Fair Trade

Contact: Rogelio Ramírez Lopez, ++ 502-5040-4408, [email protected]

Cupping notes: Bright fruity acidity, sweet tobacco flavor, creamy body and a sweet, long-lasting finish with notes of cedar: 86 points (U.S. importer).

APECAFORM’s coffee is exported exclusively by Manos Campesinas and is available in the United States through Cooperative Coffees, Equal Exchange and Optco.