Ozolotepec

Though better known for its excellent cuisine and production of grower-producer mezcal, Oaxaca is a stellar coffee origin as well. Some of our favorite lots come from the Sierra Sur, a region close to the Pacific coast where forests of oak, pine, and fir are frequently shrouded in fog.

The community of San Francisco Ozolotepec lies in a remote corner of Oaxaca's southern district of Miahuatlán. Ozolotepec roughly means "in the hill of the jaguar" in Nahuatl, the dominant language group of the Aztec Empire. Most of the farmers here are in fact Zapotec, known in the pre-Hispanic era as Ben 'Zaa, "the people of the clouds." While the coast of Oaxaca has become famous for its beaches, the mountainous areas are better associated with coniferous forest and year-round fog banks....