Mexico Veracruz Zongolica

The two main regions of Mexican coffee are Chiapas and Oaxaca. This one is from Veracruz where only a tiny fraction of the coffee production occurs. It's on the Northeast coast of the country against the Gulf of Mexico. It was produced by just 20 farmers, all of them women in the town of Zongolica. It's part of an initiative to find new sustainable sources of green coffee from dependable people, and we jumped at the chance to help them out and get to carry their coffee!

It has a fairly consistent profile with what you expect from a typical Mexican coffee. It's bright, nutty, really wakes you up. There's some chocolate and some orange in there as well.  Because the beans have been sorted very well, you'll find very few defects and above average bean size.

Mexican coffee is pretty easy to roast. It can handle a variety of roast levels and can also be blended with good result. We roasted this bean everywhere from very light to very dark, and found that the two middle roasts were our favorite, but all four roasts were drinkable. In particular, I would suggest roasting this one just slightly into 2nd cracks. It gives it the least bitterness and the most balance. If you're a big light roast fan, you'll enjoy it lighter -- don't go TOO light with it, but you can take it out about 30 seconds before second cracks to get a sharper, bright lime, caramel, hazelnut taste profile. Third best option is to take it 60 seconds into 2nd cracks and get the roasty, dark peanut notes of a french roast coffee.

US Arrival: July 2024Central America