DAY 10

COFFEE INFO:

Producer - Red Beetle

Varietal - Typica, Bourbon

Process - Washed

Origin - Mexico, Oaxaca

 

Mel's Brew recipe:

Method: v60

Ratio: 15g in / 250g out

Grind: EK 8

Water temp: 95

50 g bloom wait 40 s, pour the rest (200) up to 250

 

MORE INFO:

 

This region is a difficult area to work within. It is extremely remote and shut off compared to our other regions. As such, the communities there are closed, timid and intuitively cautious of strangers. The language spoken there is a variant of Zapotec. This is one of the many indigenous languages widely spoken throughout southern Mexico and likely has hundreds of different variants/dialects. As such our coordinator in the area has to be local and speak that variant of Zapotec, which he translates to Spanish as best he can for us. This is Ricardo.

 

To get from one village or town to the next takes hours to walk and even to drive is far from a quick trip. It is a steep and very rural area. There are frequent landslides in the wet season. There is very little mobile phone reception and internet. Even if there was good mobile phone reception, many producers do not have a phone. Ricardo lives in the village of San Francisco Ozolotepec. Messages back and forth to each producer can take days, especially if from one village to another - it is world’s apart from the excellent communication channels most of us take for granted nowadays. 

 

Due to the cultural, language and distance barriers working in the region is complicated. But we wanted to help these remote communities to make the most of the land and products that they have. Previously their coffees were bought by buyers who would blend on mass the various different lots, losing many of these great micro lots to large, lower quality blends. We hope that the higher prices received for their great coffees helps to give the producers the opportunity to stay if they desire, rather than feel the need to leave to search for work in other places. This therefore assists in being able to keep their traditions and language alive. Something that has disappeared in many countries and communities across the globe. With us being the “link” to the business world, the producers can retain their private lives as they have done for centuries.

 

 

Please leave your own results, recipes or feedback below. Would be great to get a little bit of dialogue going with everyone here. We will be monitoring and responding ourselves.

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