Mexico Carlos Cadena- Finca Xilontla Gesha Natural

Carlos Cadena is a 5th-generation coffee producer in Cosautlan. His great-great-grandfather began coffee production in the 1890s. He was processing coffee cherries with wooden tanks at that time. Then gradually his family expanded by acquiring nearby farms, and currently Carlos, together with his family, owns 6 farms with a total production of approximately 3,150 quintales.

For Carlos, coffee isn’t “work” but a “hobby.” When asked, “What do you like to do in your free time?”, he said, “Cupping, and I like to do it every day.” Even though his family has a long history of coffee in Cosautlan, Carlos is the only one who keeps living in Cosautlan because he loves working in the coffee industry. All the others live in Xalapa, which is the capital city of the state of Veracruz.

Carlos got interested in specialty coffee in 2018 when he noticed that some farmers were selling at much better prices than the market price. Carlos has been participating in the Cup of Excellence since 2012. This gave him familiarity with common ways to improve quality, but since 2018, he started to separate by variety to compare the cupping profile. At the same time, one of his customers shared information on different processes, such as Natural and Honey. Since then, he has been exploring different combinations of processes and varieties to achieve the best cup of coffee. That’s how he won 3rd place in the 2023 Cup of Excellence in Mexico and first in the 2024 auction in the experimental category.

Carlos is also extremely focused on conservation and sustainability. He tries to reuse and repurpose as much of the waste as possible from coffee production, including composting coffee pulp and building his water re-capture system to both conserve water and also irrigate the fields.