IN THE CUP: Baked fruit, milk chocolate & Golden Syrup

Origin: Oaxaca, Mexico | Producer: Producers of Sierra Mazateca | Variety: Mixed |   Process: Mixed Electronicas | Altitude: 1500 MASL | Harvest: 2024

Mazateca is located in the Oaxaca region of Mexico, one of the most diverse states in the country both biologically and culturally. The region takes its names from the Indigenous people of the land, the Mazatec, and to this day 92% of the population of Mazateca speak the indigenous language. The locals show connection to their ancestry through celebrations and traditions like The Day of the Dead and local seed sowing festivals. And coffee growing is also an important part of that tradition. The landscape is steep which makes for hard work but also outstanding cup quality. Our import partners for this coffee, Raw Material, have been working hard with the locals to help sort and separate high quality lots for the not so great quality lots, instead of the more traditional method of blending everything together. The challenging conditions and the altitude, combined with the latitude at which Mazateca sits, can lead to very low temperatures, but it also has a very positive impact on cup quality - Coffees from Mazateca are renowned for there complexity and brightness.

This particular lot is know as the “Electronicas” lot. Simply put this coffee are the off-casts from an electronic sorting machine. Cup quality isn’t the only factor that determines if a coffee is speciality or not. There will often be a threshold for physical defects but what is interesting about these physical defects is that they do not always denote a dramatic decrease in cup score. So the coffee that has been separated by the sorting machine would ordinarily be sold into the local market for a very low price. However, if this same coffee is sorted again at a lower tolerance, although there may well be some physical defects, what we end up with is still a rather delicious coffee. The end result is that it allows the producers to sell more of their coffee at speciality prices and can help increase profits by up to 1.5 times. In the current coffee market adding this extra value into the supply chain can be invaluable.

What we end up with in the cup is a delicious, full bodied coffee with notes of baked fruit and milk chocolate.

*Our coffee is freshly roasted each week and orders are dispatched on Tuesday and Thursday for orders received by 12pm the day before.