Yolanda Dominguez
Impressions: dark chocolate, sunflower seed, lemon, cinnamon
Roast Degree: light (3/5)
Country: Mexico
Region: Oaxaca (Sierra Norte)
Municipality: San Juan Juquila Vijanos
Varietal: a blend of bourbon, typica, gesha, mundo novo and mersellesa
Farm size: 2.5-hectare plot
Process: Washed
Fermentation: 48h
Drying: 5 days
Export Partner: Azahar Coffee
When you buy this coffee, you are a part of something bigger than just a tasty cup of Joe: you help readjust the scale that has been tipped against farmers for decades, and give a good wage to an Indigenous woman producer.
This is how we challenge a status quo that always benefits importers and roasters while neglecting the very people we depend on, the farmers.
(See our transparency report for all the details, but read below for more info on Yolanda.)
Our main goal as a business is to enact change. And this coffee is part of the changes we wish to see in the industry.
What does this mean?
It means that we are trying to change the fact that farmers, even if they are responsible for producing all the raw material we need and without whom we couldn’t even be in business, are often not in charge of who they sell their coffee to, or for how much.
Yolanda Dominguez Yescas, 48 years old, was born and raised in Juquila. She is a third generation coffee farmer.
For almost 14 years her husband Luiz Cruz Cruz was in the United States to support the family from there. It was very hard to work the field while raising their three kids Misti, Eber and Edwin.
With her husband support they could buy 2 hectares of land to produce their own coffee. They started in 2012, but unfortunately were hit hard by la roya (coffee leaf rust). It’s only in 2018 that they started to produce coffee again, and the loss of 6 good years of production and expansion were felt when they started again.
Since then, it’s been relatively good, and Yolanda enjoys working in coffee. It is her family’s primary income even if they produced only two bags of exportable coffee. This was just an extra reason for us to pay more for the coffee.
They are part of a producing group called Juquila Vijanos, a 99% Indigenous group of Zapotec origin that helps facilitate government programs and transport. Each farmer is responsible for fermentation, drying and milling of their own lots.
They also produce corn and cane sugar as secondary crops.
The Serrano landscape in Juquila Vijanos is characterized by the presence of steep mountains, with slopes that can go up to 90%, making picking much more challenging. With an average and warm temperature of 22 degrees Celsius, excellent conditions for coffee cultivation.
This one is a deeply satisfying brew that feels like an enhanced classic: it'll feel both familiar and different.
The mouthfeel is enjoyable, like melting dark chocolate on your tongue for a great bitter/sweet mix.
The coffee comes aline due to a citrus like acidity (mostly lemon to us), and the spicy, cinnamon like finish ads tons of depth.
Even the nutty aspect of this coffee feels unique, as we taste something we rarely do in a brew: sunflower seed. Maybe this was just a one off during our testing, vut it was beautiful nonetheless.
| Method | Dose | Ratio | Time |
| Espresso | 16-20 g | 2:1 | 26-30 sec |
| Espresso with milk | 16-20 g | 1.9:1 | 32-34 sec |
| Americano | 16-20 g | 2.3:1 | 26-30 sec |
|
V60/Origami |
18-32 g | 15.5:1 | 3:15-3:45 min |
|
Chemex & Batch Brew |
40-60 g | 15.5:1 | 4:30-5:45 min |
|
French Press |
18-25 g | 14.5:1 | 3:45 min steep time |
Farmer: Yolanda Dominguez Yescas
# of exportable bags: 2x69kg
Export partner: Azahar Coffee
For the second year in a row, we are happy to be able to offer you the fruit of Yolanda's hard work.
Last year, she could produce only one bag of exportable coffee, but with some community lead training, Azahar's support and Rabbit Hole's dedication to paying higher prices, she could produce 2 bags fit for export. The renewing of older plants on her farm lead to a 25% increase in yield.
We are buying this coffee while using the Sustainable Coffee Buyer's Guide* metrics and research.
The SCBG tiers explained:
- poverty wage: the price paid for a coffee that would leave farmers living in poverty in that region
- legal wage: farmers paid according to the minimum salary imposed by the government
- living wage: a wage that allows the farmers to live well with all their family while also paying farm workers a living wage
- prosperous wage: this is the same as the living income but with an extra 20% paid to the farmers family for personal savings + another 20% paid for reinvestment in the farm
The price we paid last year amounted to a living wage for Josefina, but due to rapidly increasing costs (24% increased cost of production vs last year), this year our payment fell between legal and living wage.
Price we paid to Josefina (farmgate): 415MXN per parchment of coffee.
Local price average: 50MXN
We paid 8 times the market price, but as we already explained, this is not merely enough to reach the living price range this harvest.
Here is the general situation of what is required for each tier in the Sierra Norte region of Oaxaca this harvest:
• Poverty Price: 300 MXN
• Legal Price: 370 MXN
• Living Price: 610 MXN
• Prosperity Price: 1310 MXN
Despite rising costs and challenges, Josefina is steadfast in her commitment to maintain her farm, and despite only breaking even last year with the sales of her coffee, we will continue to support her as best as we can.
One challenge we have as roasters is tied to the overall way coffee is priced in the specialty industry and the remoteness of her farm.
Coffee is tied to the local market price and the C-Price, and paying above it is usually a premise for most specialty coffee buyers. But paying eight times more means that it's hard for us to compete with roasters buying the same kind of quality in Mexico, and this coffee will look massively overpriced on our menu even though we should have paid more for it.
Lastly, the remoteness of her means an increase cost for almost everything. As an example, if we were buying coffee in more accessible region within Oaxaca or Chiapas, the 415MXN we paid would have been well above the living price and not so far off the prosperity price.
Price we paid for the landed coffee at our roastery: 62,50CAD/kg
This ~20CAD differential between the farmgate price and the landed coffee covers:
- the transport from the remote mountains of the Sierra Norte in Oaxaca to Oaxaca city
- Azahar on the ground work and export fees
- Import, financing and storage fees
- Shipping and customs from the USA to our roastery
* Those numbers were gathered by the non profit A Sustainable Coffee Buyer's Guide while doing cost of production analysis and farmer interviews for the past 4 years.