Las Cañadas, Starmaya Honey UL

Chamomile, Honey and Cacao. This honey-process Starmaya from Las Cañadas shines on a very light roast. Delightful aromatics and almost tea-like... it's one of the most chamomile-forward coffees we have tried.

A subtle sweetness and cacao-like tartness + body make this an enjoyable cup. It is a great example of how origin and agro-ecological practices highlight the floral characteristics of the variety.

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.