Mexico Mazateca Paxtle

About This Coffee

Vibrant and complex - this is one of the best harvests we’ve roasted from Mexico’s Sierra Mazateca! Despite being one of the more economically-developed countries in Latin America and having some amazing coffee-growing terrain, Mexico is a tough place to source excellent coffee. In powerhouses like Colombia, Brazil, Guatemala, Ethiopia, and Kenya, the government often takes a keen interest in developing the coffee sector. In Mexico, there's little to no government involvement, so producers have little access to agronomic training and little support getting to market, despite having amazing potential. As a result, already-small farms often produce very little coffee for the land they have. Moreover, Oaxaca's Sierra Mazateca is one of the more remote coffee-growing regions of the world, and far from an easy place to work. Spanish takes a back seat to Mayan dialects, and while the coffees can be exceptional, small farms often produce so little coffee that it's hard to justify exporting. Luckily, Frida Mendoza, her company Terra Coffeas, and our import partners Osito Coffee put in the work, traveling to meet smallholder farmers and building great-tasting coffees from multiple tiny, tiny nanolots. Because individual farms are often tiny, Terra Coffeas groups the coffee by ridgeline, or loma. Each ridge behind the town of San Mateo Yoloxochitlan forms its own small community, and through visiting the area with Frida and tasting coffees from throughout the larger Mazateca area over the years, Huck has homed in on coffee from Loma Paxtle. While prior harvests from the greater Mazateca and Paxtle have straddled the line between approachability and more fruity and adventurous flavors, this year’s harvest leans quite a bit harder towards the latter. No knocking on the approachable flavors - we have those coffees, too - but in our opinions at least, this might be the best Mexican coffee we’ve roasted. Expect a mix of blood orange and red grapefruit brightness, berry compote and tamarind fruitiness, and maple syrup sweetness to round out the package. Complex, a bit more adventurous than years past, and in our opinion at least, very tasty.