Monte Albán is a Zapotec ruin, a UNESCO World Heritage site that’s over 1000 years old, and still sits above the coffee farms tucked into the mountains around Oaxaca. A stoic reminder that humans have been building, learning and perfecting things here long before we showed up with cupping spoons and EK43s. The food and culture of Oaxaca carry that history with them, and the coffee is no exception.

The families contributing to Café Descafeinado de México are small organic producers who mostly rely on coffee as their main income. When the season slows, many head to the coast to grow corn, maize or raise cattle, doing whatever keeps their households steady. Their work is generational, shaped by heritage and spoken across multiple languages; Mixtec, Zapotec, Mazatec and Spanish. Caravela first began working with this group in 2018, starting with 55 farmers in the Sierra Sur de Oaxaca. By the next year, that had grown to 245, reaching remote communities like Los Naranjos, Tierra Blanca, Malvarisco, San Pedro Pochutla, and Santa María Ozolotepec. Today, every associated farm is certified organic at no cost to the farmers, helping them access specialty buyers and better prices. Farmed with traditional methods, producing their own compost and without need for chemical fertilisers. 

Café Descafeinado de México is Typica and Bourbon grown between 1200 and 2100 metres, then mountain-water processed at Pico de Orizaba. Spring and glacial water is used to soak and gently remove caffeine through carbon filtration before the coffee is then rehydrated with that same water. It keeps the flavour of where it came from, just without giving you the buzz. We were astonished by how good this decaf was, and we’re lucky to call it our own.