Maricella Esperón MEXICO

Maricela Esperón stands out for many reasons:

She is a woman producer who fought for land ownership. She now owns 7 plots of lands for a total of 5 hectares and leads a healthy family business, in a highly masculine culture.
She is young (early 30s) and despite having first emigrated to the big city for a few years she decided to come back to the farm and now is fully dedicated to coffee production. However, Maricela wouldn’t settle for commercial coffee production and sale; she actively looked for a way to add value to her coffee. Maricela met the Ensambles team in 2017 at a local coffee competition which sparked her interest in specialty coffee.
She produces natural process coffees in La Mazateca, a region of Oaxaca known for its cold temperatures and frequent rain, making drying very challenging. 99% of producers in this region choose washed coffees, but Maricela decided to go against the mainstream way: 90% of her crop is natural process coffee. In addition to a state of the art drying structure on shaded raised beds, Maricela and her family put enormous amounts of care into ensuring a successful drying process, for example putting drying cherries in bags within their house every night so dew won’t affect them.
She invests in farm renovations in order to optimise yields, and nurtures her own nursery with seeds of typica and mundo novo from her best plants.

Location: Mexico - Santa Maria
Altitude: 1300 MASL
Process: Natural
Varietal: Typica, Caturra, Mundo Novo
Tasting Notes: Morello Cherry, Milk Chocolate, Caramel