Maricela Esperón Natural, Mexico

Tasting Notes Roast Level: Light Process: Natural Varietal: Typica, Caturra, Mundo Novo Roaster's Notes: This exceptional coffee delivers on delicious tropical fruit flavours, while being sweet and delicate. An absolutely stunning cup. Farm Info Farm: El Sótano Region: Santa Maria la Asunción, Oaxaca Altitude: 1,300 masl Background Information Garage Coffee is proud to offer this unique and extraordinary micro-lot sourced by Ensambles Cafés Mexicanos. Maricela, daughter of Miguel and Macaria, looked for a way to help her parents, to produce better quality coffee. Avoiding the coyotes (smugglers) and breaking down the barriers in the area where she lives, she reached Ensambles. Today they produce coffee while respecting the land and raising the name of their farm. Maricela Esperón stands out for many reasons: She is a woman producer who fought for land ownership. She now owns 7 plots of lands for a total of 5 hectares and leads a healthy family business, in a highly macho culture. Being in her early 30s, after having first emigrated to the big city for a few years, she decided to come back to the farm and now is fully dedicated to coffee production. However, she wouldn’t settle for commercial coffee production and sale, and actively looked for a way to add value to her coffee. Maricela met the Ensambles team in 2017 at a local coffee competition which sparked her interest in specialty coffee. Maricela produces natural processed coffees in La Mazateca, a region of Oaxaca known for its cold temperatures and frequent rain, making the drying very challenging. 99% of producers in this region choose washed coffees, but Maricela decided to go against the mainstream was so 90% of her crop is natural process coffee. This is a huge accomplishment for something of this quality to be produced under these conditions in the region. They achieve this with a state-of-the-art drying structures on shaded raised beds, and by Maricela and her family putting enormous amounts of care into the drying - for example by bagging up and bringing the drying cherries into their house every night so they are unaffected by the dew, before laying them on the beds anew the following day. Always looking towards the future and getting the most out of her harvest, Maricela invests in farm renovations in order to optimize yields, and nurtures her own nursery with seeds of Typica and Mundo Novo from her best plants. A bit about Ensambles Cafés Mexicanos: Their job consists of joining the work of Mexican producers with that of worldwide roasters. they are transforming the paradigm of the coffee value chain. At Ensambles they produce coffee: knowing very well the risks and costs of growing coffee, so are empathic with the producers. Inspired by the need to transform the reality of coffee communities, they produce coffee under shade trees, within mesophilic forests. Creating the concept of edible forests, and thus promoting and contributing to the creation of diversified ecosystems, and the conservation of coffee-producing ecosystems, in Mexico.