It's time for another Mexican beauty from the Oaxaca region sourced by Raw Material through their in country partner Red Beetle Coffee Lab. Naturally processed coffees (dried in the skin) are risky in Mexico because of the humidity, and we've only had a few natural's from this underrated producing country, but they've all been good.

Raw Material and Red Beetle Coffee Lab have focused their work in the Oaxaca and Chiapas regions and been working with smallholder producers contributing to regional 'blends' as well as seven producers from the Union San Pedro coop, one of which is Genaro Perez.

The coffee is a mix of two varieties that are very typical to the region, Mundo Novo and Pluma Hidalgo. Pluma Hidalgo is a variant of the Typica variety and was developed in the Sierra Sur, in the town of Pluma Hidalgo just a few miles from San Pedro.

The vast majority of Mexico’s 500,000 coffee producers are smallholder farmers and have one hectare or less of land under coffee. This makes the average annual production for many producers just 100kg, making coffee farming more and more unsustainable. This is fuelling widespread migration to urban centres in Mexico and in the past, the United States. In short, coffee production is disappearing.