Mexico – Regional Select (1lb Bag)

Description

The cup: Citrus fruit, almond and cocoa flavors with tart, citric acidity.

The Regional Select program was created to highlight the unique profiles we have found that are inherent to various microclimates in many of the countries from which we source green coffee. Local variables like wind patterns, soil quality, sunlight, elevation, and other environmental influencers have much to do with the common characteristics that separate, say, a Northern Colombian from a Southern Colombian coffee, just as they inform the differences between a Colombian and a Kenyan.

For our Regional Select offerings, we source based on cup quality and character, seeking a balance of “taste of place” with availability and price. These lots are built as blends from coffees that cup out between 83–85 on our 100-point cupping scale, and come with regional and often microregional traceability, but are not farm- or producer-specific.

We found that there is a difference in style and substance between regions and microregions. In Coatapec, producers tend to deliver cherries to the mill, but there are many small producers with micromills and raised beds—where in Chiapas you find small producers depulping by hand and drying wherever they can, to deliver dry parchment to a central repository. Chiapas is also home to cooperatives, both Fair Trade and not. Many organic producers and large estates are entirely self-contained, and efficiently producing their own electricity to run their own wet mills, dry mills, and support their housing.