Mixteca Yosotatu, México

Pluma is a subregion of Oaxaca known for its incredible coffees. Over generations of harvests, producers here created the singular Pluma Hidalgo variety, an offshoot of Typica, which they grow at elevations topping 2200 masl. These singular coffees offer a wide range of flavors: distinct dried fruit notes like raisin and prune, saturated sweetness like brown sugar, richness like drinking chocolate, complex malic acidity like green apples, and even florals like amber honey and peach blossom.

Over the last few decades, Pluma’s coffee production has evolved dramatically. A century ago, huge, lower-middle-elevation coffee plantations ruled the territory. Plantation owners would buy the higher-grown, superior quality smallholder coffees as blenders for their large, undifferentiated coffee offerings. This changed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. While Pluma carved its spot on the map as a region of exceptional coffee, a combination of factors including low market pricing and coffee leaf rust disease saw estate holders abandoning their farms and shifting business to more lucrative ventures.

While the plantation estates faltered, local smallholder producers continued as they had done for generations. And while the challenges facing these farmers were the same daunting ones facing estates, by focusing on small lot production of the highest quality possible, they began to find their success.

This offering represents the unique Pluma flavor of the Grupo Yosotatu. While not a formal organization with traditional leadership roles, the producer group consists of 40 family members and neighbors who desire autonomy and independence from larger organizations. This season the group’s members focused heavily on improving their ability to dry more coffee parchment at slower, more even rates. It is an exclusively small batch production, created using traditional washed methods, but with incredible attention paid to quality.