In eastern Mexico, in Córdoba, two sisters run a fourth-generation family ranch. In recent years, they have specialized in direct contact with roasteries, creating new markets and perspectives, and have launched a decaffeinated coffee with what are probably the shortest supply chains worldwide.
Actually, the two sisters Melisa and Jimena had a different plan than taking over a ranch – Melisa studied architecture and was drawn to Switzerland. Jimena studied agricultural science in Mexico and, after her studies, decided to take over the family business together with Melisa.
Family businesses follow a different dynamic than many other companies.
Family ties can mean motivation, an obstacle, but also an obligation and pride. Melisa and Jimena witnessed firsthand how challenging the last 20 years have been. They experienced the hopes and the pain and saw that, especially in Mexico, it is time for young women to make a mark in a male-dominated field.
Melisa and Jimena, 2022
Diverse tasks at Rancho San Felipe
Rancho San Felipe is now run by the two sisters, representing the fourth generation. Their father, Adrián, honed the ranch for coffee, greatly expanded its network, and thus became a guiding light in the coffee region around Córdoba, Veracruz.
Today, Rancho San Felipe itself produces almost no coffee, but instead experiments with varieties and offers tours of its own gardens.
Melisa shows us the nursery at Rancho San Felipe, where they cultivate coffee, shade trees, fruit trees, and flowers.
The ranch buys coffee cherries or already pulped coffee in the region, processes it further, dries and sorts it until it is ready for export. Rancho San Felipe thus puts together its own blends, which Benjamin Distl, Melisa's partner, then primarily exports to Europe.
At the same time, however, the ranch also processes coffee on behalf of producers, even roasts it, or seeks market channels in Mexico itself. This broad approach helps the ranch cover many different fields and utilize the potential of its infrastructure.
At the ranch in Córdoba, in addition to a Beneficio Humedo – the place where cherries are pulped, fermented, and washed – there is also a Beneficio Seco. There, the dried coffee, still in its parchment, is cleaned of foreign matter, separated from the parchment skin, sorted by size and density, bagged, and tasted.
Rancho San Felipe at night.
The facilities have been in operation for a long time and Melisa and Jimena have long-term plans. Step by step, they want to renew the ranch. The history of the ranch goes back more than a century, when the area was even larger. Much has changed and the two are eager to start new projects and build on old relationships.
The Sueño - the project for our decaffeinated coffee with Descamex
And exactly this approach is manifested in the decaffeinated coffee that Rancho San Felipe now makes for us. A few years ago, we asked Benjamin Distl if they would be interested in making a specialty decaf?
The main reason was that Rancho San Felipe and Descamex, one of only two companies worldwide that decaffeinate green coffee using only water and pressure, are almost neighbors. Both companies are based in Córdoba. And because Melisa's and Jimena's father already knew the people in charge at Descamex, connecting the dots was quick.
Cupping at Descamex, who decaffeinate our decaf with water only
However, green coffee was still missing, and that is now contributed by Rafael Reyes. Reyes bought thousands of new seedlings of the Gesha variety, unaware that it was not Gesha at all. He hoped to succeed in a very sought-after market with it. After two years, it turned out that they were certainly not Gesha varieties and that he had been "misinformed" when purchasing.
That was just when Melisa and Jimena got in touch with him – Rafael Reyes had also previously been in contact with their father, but at that time the two sisters were younger.
However, in Reyes' memory, they were probably still "the girls" (las niñas), who one day stood on the farm and from then on called them exactly that.
Unlike before, however, they now came with a business idea of how they could help Reyes. Reyes' coffee sensorially perfectly matched the profile we desired for the decaffeinated coffee. Sweet, notes of maple syrup, heavy, with medium acidity.
Rafael Reyes' farm in the Sierra de Gallego
Reyes delivers the cherries, Rancho San Felipe de-pulps and ferments them, dries the beans, and delivers them to Descamex, ten minutes up the road towards Orizaba.
Initially, they produced one batch with Descamex, which corresponds to about 2.5 tons of green coffee. The demand for a hyper-local, decaffeinated coffee continuously increased – from us and from friendly roasters – so Rancho San Felipe is now quintupling the quantity.
Don Ramiro, the farm manager, with the Sueño - from farm to roastery and back
The new generation of coffee at Rancho San Felipe
Today, Melisa and Jimena are at the helm of the ranch, while Beni handles the export and marketing of the coffee, both domestically and internationally. Beni himself also roasts coffee for the local market. When he attended one of our roasting courses in 2021, he surprised everyone when he said he "was able to reduce his roasting time from 60 minutes to 40 minutes."
The old 70kg roaster – it runs, and runs, and runs
Of course, that's a long roasting time, but the machine can't do more. However, for local needs, he has optimized the system to such an extent that they could increasingly roast private label coffee for producers and also create an additional sales channel with their own brand.
Whoever makes coffee doesn't just make coffee.
The tasks at Rancho San Felipe in Córdoba are so multifaceted because many of the projects have grown historically. There's the large garden where they grow flowers and succulents and sell them in their own flower shop in Orizaba. There's the model farm where they experiment with varieties, test different types of compost, grow fruits, and give tours of the farm to tourists, showing them coffee trees. There's the beehive for their own honey and the drying beds for their specialty lots, which already make up almost ten percent of the total harvest.
Visit in October 2022, from left to right: Philipp, Michel (Kaffeemacher:innen team), Melisa, Jimena, Patrizio (Ballon Coffee Roasters), Beni
Melisa, Jimena, and Beni have taken on a huge project. We are impressed with how much dedication, creativity, and humility they are stepping into the footsteps of a family tradition. They have their program, are open to projects, sense where a specialty market is developing, and know exactly that working with coffee is never just about coffee, but about people, relationships, and old bonds that they are now transitioning into a new era.
