Mexico Finca Fatima Garnica

‘Brown Sugar, Almond, Stone Fruit, Chocolate’

Brian Speckman, of Falcon Coffees writes:

"Most suppliers that we work with are people that we have known for many, many years. Rarely do you get a “a great farmer/supplier walks into a bar” type of experience but that is what happened in APG’s case.

In October of 2021, some coffee guys from Austin put out a limited-edition co-branded coffee called The Sound of Coffee which was very, very cool. They used a coffee from Mexico produced by a guy named Ernesto Perez who came to the launch. I was invited to hang out at a local bar after the launch by Ethan Billips who is the buyer for Spokesman Coffee and I happened to sit next to Ernesto. We started chatting and had a very similar approach to coffee. We agreed to keep in touch and try some samples when he was back in Mexico.

Ernesto had been to school in Texas and then went back to his family farm, Fatima, in Coatepec, Veracruz, learned some new processing techniques, won the Cup of Excellence in 2019 scoring 89.41, and was able to kick out the multinational in town who had been renting his family’s mill for less and less every year as their market access dried up."

We were excited to work with coffees from Veracruz, because historically when asked about coffees from this area, exporters in Mexico would say, “Veracruz is where coffee ships from and not where any good coffee is from.” So getting amazing coffees from Veracruz seemed like a contrarian move, which is always fun. Coffee is full of these 'absolutes' that suddenly are not 'absolutes' any longer."

APG are fourth generation coffee people. The name APG comes from the initials of Ernesto’s great grandfather, Antonio Perez Galvan, who was an exporter in the 1930s and exported commercial containers to Europe and
New York.

APG’s family farm, Fatima, is a 20-hectare farm in Coatepec, Veracruz. Since Ernesto joined the family business in 2018, they have made many changes to their processing: fermenting in smaller batches at lower temperatures, longer fermentation times, and experimenting with naturals and honeys.