91¿ì»îÁÖ

91¿ì»îÁÖ support indigenous farmers through a collaboration with Capeltic coffee

With more than 10.5 million tons of coffee beans produced worldwide in 2024, coffee fuels a major industry and stands as a leading export for developing countries.

But despite being a billion-dollar industry, small-scale farmers in remote communities do not control how their coffee beans are sold or how much they earn. In fact, only a small share of what you pay for your daily cup of coffee actually reaches the people who grow and roast the beans.

Before it gets to you, coffee passes through a series of middlemen. Exporters and distributors often set prices based on global economic trends, including harvest sizes in Brazil, the world’s largest producer. These prices fluctuate frequently, and can sometimes lower what indigenous coffee farmers are paid, directly impacting their livelihoods. 

One café at 91¿ì»îÁÖ is working to change this after collaborating with , a coffee cooperative based in Chiapas, Mexico. The cooperative’s mission is to ensure that the farmers who grow and harvest the coffee beans earn more of the profit from each cup sold.

Thanks to an Ignatian Center immersion last year, Santa Clara students worked with University leadership and Capeltic to bring their business to a U.S. college for the first time. All coffee brewed in the Cadence Cyber Café at Lucas Hall will support the collective and their effort to empower farmers at every stage of the coffee-making process.

“This is probably the first cup of fully ethical, traceable coffee you will ever drink. Not only does the coffee taste good, it’s feel-good and social-good,” Jazmine Low says. “And Capeltic’s mission aligns with our Jesuit values.”

Capeltic, which means “our coffee” in the Mayan language Tseltal, reflects the strong ties indigenous farmers have to their land, their culture, and the beans that they grow. In the summers of 2023 and 2024, Santa Clara students traveled to Chiapas to learn about the cooperative behind Capeltic, whose mission is to make sure farmers profit at every stage of the coffee-making process even when market demand fluctuates. 

The Ignatian Center organizes immersions like these to allow students to walk alongside people (locally and abroad), learn from their experiences, and understand their challenges. The goal isn’t to offer help or labor. The students learn from the knowledge and expertise of the people in the communities they visit. Through these firsthand encounters, they develop compassion and a commitment to serving others, values that will stay with them long after their time at Santa Clara.

“We work with community partners doing incredible work that is rooted in justice and solidarity, like Capeltic,” says Low, who facilitated both immersions. “We go, we learn, and we listen. We rely on community members to tell us what could be helpful and we offer what we can. That’s how the Capeltic project came about.”

In 2024, Paulina Salinas ’27 joined nine fellow Santa Clara students and two staff members on a trip to Chilón, a city in the highlands of Chiapas where many families of farmers have lived and worked for generations. She says forming relationships with people there reminded her of the importance of awareness, determination and hard work. 

“My grandfather was from Chiapas and he’s the reason why I wanted to pursue higher education,” says Salinas, who is studying finance and international business at Santa Clara. “He’d always tell me: ‘just learn, Paulina!’ so when I saw that I could go to his homeland and immerse myself into the culture, I jumped at the opportunity.”

During the immersion, students observed Capeltic’s production process firsthand and realized that coffee growers struggle to earn a steady income and sustain their livelihoods.

Because the cooperative has been so successful, many more farmers in Chilón and nearby communities hope to join. However, systemic challenges related to uncertain market conditions affect their ability to support more growers. One avenue that has allowed them to expand in recent years is entering new markets, with the United States being a potentially highly impactful spot. 

“They aren’t striving to have a coffee shop on every corner. They simply want to help indigenous families subsist and maintain their land,” Low says. 

As part of their immersion, Santa Clara students are required to complete a project after they return to support the people they worked with during their experience. The students saw this as an opportunity to make a difference for the farmers in Chilón. Since Capeltic had already opened its first coffee shop in 2010 at Iberoamericana University, a Jesuit institution in Mexico City, students began to ask: if Jesuit universities in Mexico are supporting this movement, why not Santa Clara too?

“As people, we have the opportunity to be part of something bigger than ourselves,” says Salinas. “That’s why it was so important for us to have the challenging conversations and figure out a way to bring Capeltic coffee to Santa Clara.”

The students worked with staff at the Ignatian Center for nearly two years to make Capeltic an official coffee vendor on campus. At first, they faced challenges securing contract approvals due to established vendor relationships, but they ultimately succeeded in ensuring that all the beans used to make coffee in Lucas Hall would be Capeltic originals. To celebrate this collaboration, the Ignatian Center will host an official launch party at the Cadence Cyber Café in Lucas Hall on Oct. 21 at 11:30 a.m.

“I’m beyond grateful to actually see this come to life. Being a global changemaker and lifelong learner is something that I’ve always resonated with, and bringing Capeltic to campus has been a great opportunity to be a leader in that way,” Salinas says. 

The experience had a lasting personal impact on her as well. When she returned from the immersion, Salinas remembers sharing her experience with her grandfather, who was thrilled to hear about all she had seen in his homeland. Just a few days after their conversation, he passed away. She’s glad to have something meaningful to honor her grandfather. 

“Looking back, being able to talk to him about everything I saw and learned in his state was something that really helped me with my grief,” Salinas says. “I’m really grateful that Santa Clara and the Ignatian Center have been able to support this effort. Now, I can sip Capeltic coffee on campus and think about my grandfather.”