The Mazateca mountain range, located north of Oaxaca city, forms much of the state's border with Veracruz. This region is renowned for its remote location, difficult access, and steep, dramatic topography. The Mazateca is also famous for its mystical elements, boasting a strong culture of shamanism and psychoactive mushroom use that made it an unlikely centre for alternative tourism in the 1960s and '70s.

Today, the region sees few visitors. Even in the coffee world, it's often overlooked due to challenging conditions, remote locations, and small production volumes. Coffee yields here are exceptionally low, even by Oaxacan standards, partly due to cool temperatures. In the Mazateca, coffee is generally grown at 1,500 meters and above. At this latitude, these altitudes can experience very low temperatures, making frost damage a significant risk for producers.

However, this climate and these altitudes also contribute positively to the cup profile. Generally, coffees from the Mazateca are among the most complex and highest quality in all of Mexico.

Many producers in this region don't speak Spanish, with Mazateco being the first language for most people. While this can make organization and coordination more challenging, the quality and potential of the coffee make the Mazateca a unique and special region.

Farms here range in size from 0.5 to 4 hectares, though most producers have less than one hectare and produce less than 100 kg of parchment coffee each year. These low yields are the primary challenge facing producers across Oaxaca, particularly in the Mazateca.

The community-led producer group at Peña Colorada consolidates their coffees to ensure an exportable volume. The cherries are pulped, often with hand pulpers, then fermented for about 48 hours, typically in wooden tanks. After fermentation, the coffee is dried on *petates*, traditional hand-woven mats.

The Peña Colorada group is not a formal co-op or association, but rather a community-led producer group.

Raw Material are working closely with them to open up access to the specialty market for producers in the Mazateca and to provide a sustainable and profitable supply chain for their coffees. This approach offers a long-term, stable, and profitable alternative to selling to local intermediaries at market-based prices—currently the only option for many producers. Over time, this supply chain can generate capital and investment to improve yields, production volumes, and quality in the Mazateca region.

Typica is believed to be the first described variety of Coffea arabica. It's known by several other names, including Blue Mountain, Criollo, Guatemala, Sumatra, Arabigo, Plume Hidalgo, and Kona.

Typica plants are characterized by their tall stature and are renowned for producing coffee with excellent cup quality. However, they have low productivity and are susceptible to coffee diseases. Despite these drawbacks, Typica plants are well-adapted to cold environments. Their most distinctive feature is the bronze-tipped young leaves. Today, Typica is still cultivated in various regions, including Central America, Hawaii, the Caribbean, South America, and Indonesia.

Mundo Novo is a coffee variety resulting from a natural cross between Bourbon and Typica, discovered in Mineiros do Tietê, São Paulo, Brazil. It's known for its productivity and good cup quality, but it's susceptible to major diseases. Mundo Novo has commercial importance in Brazil and other South American countries, including Peru. Costa Rica introduced it in 1952, but farmers didn't widely adopt it due to its very tall stature. This variety can also be found in Malawi, Africa. While vigorous and productive for a traditional American variety, Mundo Novo matures late.

Bourbon is one of the most culturally and genetically significant varieties of Arabica coffee in the world. This tall variety is characterized by relatively low production and susceptibility to major diseases. However, it produces excellent cup quality when grown at high altitudes.

The first Bourbon plantation dates back to 1715 when the variety was introduced from Yemen to Bourbon Island, now known as La Réunion. Bourbon traces its origins to a broad group of C. arabica specimens that developed naturally and is still cultivated in Central America today.

Depending on the sub-group, Bourbon coffee can produce red, yellow, or orange-coloured cherries. The plant's shoots initially grow upwards at a 45° angle to the stem, and the stems are sturdy. Young leaves are green, and the plants generally have broader leaves and rounder fruit and seeds than Typica and its descendants.

This process was designed to minimise the danger of off-flavours caused by uncontrolled fermentation during the natural process. The cherries are usually sorted using a floatation tank where any under-ripe or defective fruits will float to the top and can be removed. The remaining cherries are then pulped and left in a tank to ferment until the sticky fruit mucilage is soft enough to be washed off the parchment, which is a paper-like layer surrounding the seed.

The design and cleanliness of the tanks is important, and the degree and speed of fermentation will depend on many variables including how much fruit remains, what bacteria and yeasts are present, whether the tank is filled with water, and the environmental conditions.
Once the mucilage has degraded sufficiently it is washed away using water and the remaining parchment coffee, as it’s commonly called, is dried until it reaches a safe moisture content. The bacteria and sugar-rich water used in the process needs to be treated carefully as it can cause algae blooms if it finds its way into streams and rivers.

In situations where large amounts of coffee is processed in bulk like Ethiopia, it has proven economical for some operations to use a mechanical demucilager, removing all the fruit from the parchment with minimal water, and foregoing the fermentation stage completely. This however, is believed by some to lead to a reduction in cup quality as many pre-cursors for flavour are created through fermentation.