Las Cañadas, Gesha Honey

Jasmine, Black Tea, Kiwi, Cane Sugar... packed in a light, tea-like body and a subtle yet sweet and aromatic cup.

- "Wow, you said México?"

 - "That's right!"

That was the most common conversation when we did a preview during LA Coffee Fest! And this is not by chance, but comes from 30 years of experience on agro-ecology and rehabilitating the cloud forest ecosystem neighboring the tallest peak in México, the Pico de Orizaba. Join us to experience and celebrate the amazing job the folks at Las Cañadas are doing!

We roasted this coffee pretty lightly (just not quite as light as the Starmaya) to round up the sweetness and compliment the floral notes.

Meet the Producer

Las Cañadas is not a typical coffee farm — it’s a cooperative of 22 worker-members (no bosses, no employees) living in one of the last cloud forest pockets in Veracruz. Since 1998 they have restored 225 hectares of pastureland, established Mexico’s first ecological easement, and become the country’s leading training center in agro-ecology and permaculture — growing about 80% of the food their 58-member community consumes.

Coffee is their newest chapter. Their Finca Escuela de Café applies decades of agro-ecological expertise to six hectares of shade-grown coffee, currently evaluating nine exciting varieties and building a cooperative model of production, processing, and trade designed to lift 40 neighboring producer families — with an emphasis on women and young people. Shade grown coffee sustains biodiversity like no other crop in the region, and here it also sustains the forest that provides water to two nearby communities.