Organic Mexican arabica, whole bean, from TOTO Organics.
Mexico is one of the quiet giants of organic coffee, and the reason is historical rather than agronomic. Most Mexican coffee is grown by smallholders on very small plots in the southern states — Chiapas, Oaxaca, Veracruz — often at high altitude and often under shade trees. Those farms were largely too small and too remote to industrialise, which meant they never adopted heavy chemical inputs in the first place. When organic certification arrived, a great many of them were already farming that way, and Mexico became one of the largest exporters of certified organic coffee in the world. The certification followed the practice rather than changing it.
Shade-grown matters, and not only for the coffee. Coffee evolved as a forest understorey shrub, and growing it under a canopy rather than in full sun slows ripening, which develops sugars and acidity more completely. It also keeps trees standing, and shade coffee plantations support dramatically more bird species than sun-grown monoculture — one of the better-documented cases where a farming method and biodiversity genuinely align.
What it tastes like. Mexican coffee tends towards the gentle end: mild acidity, nutty and chocolatey, clean, without the fruit-forward drama of Ethiopian or Kenyan coffee. That makes it an excellent everyday coffee, an excellent base for milk drinks, and the one to buy if very acidic coffees have put you off filter brewing.
Buy whole bean and grind fresh. Ground coffee loses most of its aroma within fifteen to thirty minutes, because grinding multiplies the surface area and the volatile compounds simply leave. A grinder is a bigger upgrade to home coffee than any machine.
Storage: airtight, cool, dark, away from the hob — and never in the fridge, where coffee absorbs moisture and the smell of everything else, and condenses every time it comes out.
Available at Só Verde, an organic concept store in Foz, Porto.
Araku Coffee
Araku Coffee
Araku Coffee
Araku Coffee
