Origin Story
The Sierra Mazateca is a mountain range located to the north of Oaxaca City. The region is very remote, hard to access, and is marked by its steep and dramatic topography. It became an unlikely centre for alternative tourism in the 1960s and 70s after a local healer called María Sabina allowed Westerners to participate in the velada healing ritual.
Today the region is rarely visited, and even in the coffee world it is often neglected due to its remote location, challenging conditions, and small production. Coffee is generally grown at 1,600 MASL and above, and at this latitude, these altitudes experience very low temperatures making frost damage a real issue for producers.
On the other hand, the climate and altitude contribute positively to the cup profile, and in general, coffees from the Mazateca are amongst the most complex and high quality in all of Mexico.
20 years ago, Abigail’s parents planted their farm outside of San Isidro Zoquiapam with typica, oro azteca and caturra. Abigail, now 34 years old, has been working with the coffee for 11 years, alongside the corn, beans, avocado and other vegetables that they grow on the farm.
The coffee is fully washed with the typical long fermentations found in the Mazateca owing to the high altitude and relatively cold climate - around 48 hours in this case, before being dried on petates, traditional hand-woven mats.
The family keep 50kg of the coffee that they grow for themselves, with the rest being sold to our partners at Red Beetle.
Each season whilst building the community and regional lots at their mill, Untao, in Magdalena Apasco, Thomas, Shaun and the team at Red Beetle Coffee Lab separate out some of the best scoring lots from individual producers. Abigail’s was one such lot, and it stood out for us at a cupping of Red Beetle’s coffees at the Tate Britain last year.
Production volumes are generally very small in the Mazateca, on average about 100kg per producer, so we feel very lucky to have secured this one sack that showcases the great potential for coffees from this region.
