Amatenango de la Frontera Decaf // Chiapas, Mexico

by Hex

This lot comes from a collective of smallholder producers in the mountains of Chiapas, on the border just north of Guatemala. Rainfall here is generous,  the soil is volcanic and nutrient dense, and farms are often intercropped with subsistence crops or left partially shaded by native trees.  This lot is a blend of parchment collected across numerous small producers whose coffees are fully washed and patio-dried before consolidation. Though these growers operate at a small scale, many have refined their wet processing through experience passed down over generations—typically fermenting in tile or cement tanks before washing and drying under sun. Decaffeinated at origin by Descamex using the Mountain Water Process, this coffee undergoes a chemical-free decaffeination method that aims to preserve the integrity of the bean’s aromatic and flavor compounds. Water from Pico de Orizaba, Mexico’s tallest mountain,  is used to extract caffeine through a gentle soaking and filtering process, aft