Sochiapam (Mexico)

Artwork Credit: Sam Landsberg

We LOOOVE the juicy, sweet fruit, floral and herbaceous nature of this coffee. While we would never pass up a drip or pourover of Sochiapam, it must also be tried as an espresso.

Sochiapam sits up in the highlands, a six hour drive from the city of Oaxaca, yet is one of the largest coffee growing communities in the region. Heavily wooded and protected from just about every commercial activity, Sochiapam is a community committed to preserving their land; so much so that they don’t even have a paved road in town. Most producers have small 1-2 hectare plots and transfer their coffee cherries by mule to the central washing station. 

Yet, one of the most distinct characteristics that separates Sochiapam from other coffee-producing communities is their solid infrastructure of schools, hospitals, stores and other modern necessities that keeps younger generations of coffee farmers in the community instead of fleeing to other cities for work. 

In the past five years, Sochiapam has shifted more from quantity to quality. Working with our importer-partner, Red Fox Coffee Merchants, producers here have been able to yield higher cup quality through selective harvesting, improved fermentation and drying practices, and modernizing washing stations and dry mills. This coffee undergoes fermentation in wood tanks for up to 24 hours, then drying for 7-10 days. We love the juicy fruit tones that are present in this clean, washed coffee.