Puerto Rican Agriculture, Worldwide
Coffee, cacao, honey and vanilla, grown by the farmers who are rebuilding the island's agriculture. Direct trade. Fair pay. Every harvest traceable to the hands that grew it.
Puerto Rico once fed the world's coffee cups. After generations of decline and then Hurricane Maria, the island grows only a fraction of the coffee it drinks. The farmers who stayed have the land, the heirloom trees and the knowledge. What they lack is a way to the market.
Zafra is that way. We buy direct, pay fairly, and carry the harvest to buyers who value where it comes from.
Four harvests, island-grown, mountain-shaded, hand-picked. Limited production, not commodity volume.
Heirloom Puerto Rican Arabica. Washed process, small lots, grown at altitude.
Heritage Trinitario, descended from Spanish colonial plantings. Fermented, sun-dried, single-origin.
Raw, unfiltered wildflower and coffee-blossom. Mountain-grown and untreated.
USDA-TARS varieties from Castañer — a crop the island has grown since 1909 and is reviving today.
Each harvest has its own history and its own reason for being rare.
Heirloom Arabica from the mountains of Yauco, Jayuya, Adjuntas and Maricao. Washed process, small lots, grown at altitude.
Heritage Trinitario descended from Spanish colonial plantings — the fine-flavor type, from trees isolated on the island for generations.
Raw, unfiltered wildflower and coffee-blossom honey from the Cordillera Central. Mountain-grown and untreated.
USDA-TARS varieties from Castañer, a crop the island has grown since 1909. Zafra plans to buy directly from the Cooperativa de Vainilla de Puerto Rico, a farmer cooperative founded in 2023, and carry its vanilla to market.
Running west to east through the island's heart, the Cordillera Central rises past 4,000 feet. It is the rainiest corner of Puerto Rico outside El Yunque, home to most of the island's endemic species and to most of its protected forests. Coffee, cacao, honey and vanilla all grow here, in mountain towns like Adjuntas, Jayuya, Utuado, Lares and Yauco.
For a golden age, Puerto Rico coffee was poured in the courts of Europe. Grown on these slopes and shipped from Ponce, it was among the most prized coffees of the 19th century — until sugar, war and industrialization pulled the island's economy to the coast and the coffee highlands went quiet.
Hurricane Maria in 2017 was the hardest blow. The storm flattened a large share of the island's coffee trees, and the farmers who stayed have spent the years since replanting and rebuilding. The heirloom genetics, the mountain craft and the pickers' knowledge are still here — what has been missing is a way to the market that pays for what this range can grow.
Cacao, honey and vanilla have their own histories on these slopes, and they are being revived too.
This is more than a premium product. Every harvest, whether coffee, cacao, honey or vanilla, keeps a mountain farm working and a forest standing. These are small, hard-won crops from one of the Caribbean's most unusual landscapes, and they are coming back.
Zafra distributes. We do not farm, and we do not process.
Grow and harvest.
A farmer-owned cooperative will process, grade and package.
Sells to wholesale and specialty buyers in Puerto Rico, the US and beyond.
Our plan is to source vanilla from the Cooperativa de Vainilla de Puerto Rico, and to build a coffee, cacao and honey cooperative, Areito.
Traceability. Every shipment is designed to carry a provenance card: region, farm, harvest date, processing method and the price paid to the farmer.
We are building three organizations that work as one.
We are starting with specialty roasters, chocolate makers, hospitality and gifting buyers who care how their products are made. Our first partners will help shape what we carry.
Tell us what you are looking for. We will tell you honestly what we can supply and when.
Contact usSan Juan, Puerto Rico · zafratrading.com