Mexico Cuarenteno, Medium-Light Roast

Producer: El Cuarenteño Community

Country: Mexico

Region: Nayarit

Process: Honey

Elevation: 1020 masl

Variety: Caturra (53%), Catuai (29%), Criollo (15%), Mundo Novo (3%)

Roast Level: Medium-Light

Tastes Like: Dark Chocolate, Honeyed Cereal

El Cuarenteño is a rural community located in the foothills of Sierra de San Juan, just west of Tepic. The area was initially settled in 1910, established as the center of a wealthy landowner's farm. Several years later, the owner received petitions from his workers wanting to buy pieces of his land, but he declined their offer preferring instead to lease the property. In 1939 the Mexican government passed an agrarian reform resolution allowing the formation of Ejidos*. The following year the community of El Cuarenteño was granted an endowment of 3,500 hectares to form their own Ejido.

The community of El Cuarenteño produces both organic and conventional coffee. CAFESUMEX has relationships with three different societies in the community: PROCAA, BASILIO, and RIVIERA, two of which have their own wet mill processing facilities.

Currently El Cuarenteño has about 840 hectares of coffee in production at altitudes between 900 and 1400 meters (2900 to 4600 ft). The landscape provides a beautiful panorama and breathtaking views of the famous “Three Marias Islands” on the Pacific Ocean.

This particular coffee from the El Cuarenteño community is a bit of a unicorn - it was never supposed to exist. During processing at origin, the machine used to separate the mucilage from the coffee was set to the wrong setting, resulting in a small amount of mucilage remaining on the coffee seeds. This is typically referred to "Honey" processing.