San Lucas Zoquiapam - Oaxaca, Mexico

San Lucas Zoquiapam is lushly forested with a dense fog layer. The producers of the area take great care of the forest and have prohibited the hunting of wild animals such as armadillos, wild boars, lowland bales, and others. San Lucas Zoquiapam, unlike other towns in Mexico, has a large number of young coffee producers. They view the coffee business favorably and want to continue their ancestral craft using techniques passed down over many generations and cultivating the endemic varieties of this area. Producers usually have their own processing stations at home. Most in this area soak their coffee for 18-24 hours in wooden tanks, then dry it for 6-10 days on raised beds or petates. Producers usually keep a distance of 2 meters between rows and 1.5 meters between seedlings. Between each row, producers place a plant that serves to separate the rows and keep the coffee trees apart. Producers use native trees such as ice cream bean trees and pines to shade their coffee trees. These trees provide not only shade, but also various benefits such as food, ornamentation, medicine, construction materials, and water retention. Zoquiapam producers produce corn, beans and lumber apart from coffee. They transport their coffees via mule. Harvest is carried out between families and neighbors, since most families' production is small and outside labor is scarce. This coffee has been imported by Red Fox Coffee Merchants