Mexico, San Francisco - Single Origin Espresso

This coffee comes from the Zapotec communities of San Francisco and San Juan de Ozolotepec in Oaxaca’s remote Sierra Sur. Osito has been building sourcing relationships in Mexico for the past seven years and is now in its sixth year purchasing coffee from the Ozolotepec region. Outside of Burundi, where Padre sources coffees through Osito with Long Miles Coffee, this is the most geographically isolated origin Osito works with, defined by challenging access and limited infrastructure.

The lot was sourced through Red Beetle Coffee Lab and produced by nine Zapotec smallholder farmers, each managing farms typically ranging from 1.5 to 3 hectares. Typica and Bourbon dominate plantings in the area, grown at high elevation under cool, cloudy conditions. Individual producer contributions averaged around 80 kilograms — often representing an entire year’s harvest — with all cherries processed centrally in Ozolotepec to ensure consistency across the lot.

Processing follows a traditional washed method adapted to the region’s climate. Cherries undergo dry fermentation for two to four days, significantly longer than in warmer regions, before drying over an average of eight days. Initial drying takes place on rooftop cement patios, followed by raised beds inside solar dryers lined with woven petates — a locally used natural fibre mat. These slow, controlled drying conditions are essential in preserving clarity, stability and delicacy at such elevation.

All producers contributing to this lot are native Zapotec, members of one of the oldest and most sophisticated Indigenous civilisations of Mesoamerica. With roots stretching back over 2,500 years, Zapotec culture is renowned for its early writing systems, agricultural knowledge and complex social structures. Today, this deep cultural continuity is reflected in small-scale coffee farming practices, where inherited knowledge and careful, labour-intensive processing underpin the quality of coffees like this one.