Our second coffee from Mexican processing legend Enrique Eduardo Lopez Aguilar and his farm Finca Chelin. Once again something a little different from Enrique, a double Carbonic Macerated ‘washed’ Obata. This is a variety we’ve had once before from it’s native Brazil where it was selected and released back in 2000 and subsequently commercialised in Costa Rica in 2014. Enrique bought his seeds from the Costa Rica research institute CATIA and this coffee is the result of his first year of production.

We were very fortunate to meet Enrique (virtually) at a cupping organised by the importer Raw Material last October with their in-country partner Red Beetle. Enrique told us a story about the farm name: "This Finca was founded in 1896 and was one of the first on Candelaria-Loxicha municipality to grow coffee. My grandparents from my mother side were form Candelaria and they were coffee growers too since 1913 with Finca La Oaxaqueña where my mother was born. My mother´s name was Graciela, it is a tradition to call the women with this name “Chela”, and my grandfather that was Spaniard, when my mother was a little girl, he called her “Chelin” like "small Chela". In May 2012 I purchased this Finca named Tierra Colorada, but to honour my mother memories, I called it Finca Chelin".

After picking and floating to remove unripes the cherries undergo their first Carbonic Maceration stage in the skin for 36 hours. Then they are depulped and go back into the drum for the second CM stage in the mucilage for another 48 hrs. After this they are washed and taken to the drying patios for 2 days in direct sun, then moved to another patio with 50% shade mesh for another 25 days. It’s complicated.

Each of Oaxaca’s seven coffee producing regions has a different microclimate, but all have ideal conditions to grow and produce excellent coffees. Oaxaca has a very mountainous geography, mainly through the Sierra Madre del Sur, and thousands of hectares, which Enrique describes as “fog forest”: dense, plentiful land with a magical appeal as fog creeps over hilltops in the mornings and evenings. The majority of coffees are cultivated at 1000 metres above sea level, but there are places that cultivate coffee higher than 1500 metres above sea level. The region is home to many smallholder farmers and producers that share one or two hectares of land, and many produce “extraordinary coffees”, including Enrique’s own Finca Chelín.