21 de Septiembre, Zaragoza, Mexico, 12 oz.

 1. The Coffee... Picked, fermented and washed by hand, and then dried.... often on the flat rooftops of the village! Next it makes it way down the winding mountain roads, past ancient cornfields and cocoa farms, to port. It’s perfect small-farmer coffee and incredibly delicious: the signature flavor of the region is a spicy chocolate note which mimics the spicy chocolate that has made Oaxacan cuisine famous. The coffees of the 21st often have another, delicious, savory fruit note that lends incredible complexity and nuance to the cup.

2. The Co-Op... A few years ago, an association of mountaintop villages with an extremely good reputation for producing quality coffee struck out on their own, marketing their coffee directly... hoping for better prices. They named their cooperative after the date of their founding: the 21st of September. This is the third year of our relationship with these farmers. The past two years were spent developing a system of finding and isolating the best coffees from the best farmers, separating and re-combining them to create truly extraordinary, handcrafted Oaxacan coffees.

3. The Land... The numerous villages of the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains in Oaxaca grow coffee on small, family-run farms. The highest villages in these mountains seem to exist on the border of land and sky; they perch on the tips of mountains and overlook clouds, forests, and valleys below. It is from these mountaintop villages that the best coffees come—the cool nights and rarefied air help the coffee trees produce sweet, complex coffees with a wonderful, chocolate-cherry quality.