Cafe Rebelde Zapatista - In Solidarity with the Zapatista rebellion.

Mexico produces one of the best coffees in the world, mainly grown in the mountains, and the beans are Mexico’s main export. More than 3 million Mexicans depend on the production of coffee and on its exportation for their livelihoods. Of these, the majority are small producers, mostly indigenous Mayans, struggling even to survive in a world market with rock-bottom coffee prices, while others are underpaid workers on huge plantations owned by the national elite or large foreign companies.

In order to change this situation, the EZLN (Zapatista National Liberation Army), which rose up against the government in 1994 has developed social and political projects: building, from the bottom up, a society where the Maya people can enjoy autonomy, safeguarding their own idioms and culture, and organising their own access to education, health, and land, through forms of direct democracy.

One of these projects is the creation of small cooperatives that produce the Cafe Rebelde Zapatista. The organisation of these cooperatives has strengthened and improved access to the land and the quality of life overall. This coffee is completely organic, and all money raised by buying this coffee will go directly into the autonomous communities that produced it. This project supports the struggle of indigenous communities in resistance, and is in direct solidarity with the indigenous peoples of Mexico. For more information on the Zapatista's struggle for autonomy and democracy see our dedicated Zapatista page.

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