Día de los Muertos

About this coffee

Every fall for ten years, the coffee we roast for Día de los Muertos has come from the same six mountain communities in the Sierra Sur of Oaxaca. Día de los Muertos falls on November 1 and 2, when families across Mexico build ofrendas and set out food, drink, and marigolds to welcome back the people they've lost, and Oaxaca is one of the places where the celebration runs deepest. Roasting a coffee from there each year is how we mark it. Those communities organize as Sicobi, a cooperative founded in 2010 with GAIA, a group of biologists who had already spent decades working in Oaxaca. Around 500 growers farm 1,500 hectares between 1,300 and 1,900 meters, mostly Caturra, Mundo Novo, and Typica, under a shade canopy the communities protect by policy. Young technicians from each community, many of them students, visit the parcels through the season to map varieties and soil, collect quality data, and advise growers on picking and processing. That data shapes which lots meet export standards, and only a small share of the harvest does. The coffee is fully washed, and growers ferment it in wooden tanks rather than the cement or steel you'll find at most washing stations. The Sierra Sur is unusually dry for coffee country, with hot days and cold nights that slow the cherry down as it ripens, and between the long ripening and the wooden tanks, Sicobi lots tend to come out sweeter and rounder than you'd guess from a washed coffee. This year we roasted it light, and it came across our table as hazelnut, snickerdoodle, and tiramisu, with marzipan, toasted almond, and butter toffee filling in underneath. The body is buttery, the acidity soft and mild, and it finishes sweet and rich. Producer: Sicobi cooperative (six communities) Region: Sierra Sur, Oaxaca, Mexico Altitude: 1,300 - 1,900 MASL Variety: Caturra, Mundo Novo, Typica Processing Method: Fully washed, wooden tank fermentation

Coffee details reported by Frothy Monkey.