Sourcing coffee beans in mexico city

[chino]

My espresso brewing experience has been bittersweet so far. the gearlust has finally been abated with the purchase of a quickmill stepless grinder to pair with my europiccola. But I'm still treading water on the issue of finding suitable coffee beans for my daily shots!

One would think that living in mexico city would make finding different varieties of coffee a piece of cake. But this is not necessarily the case. Although there are lots of small coffee shops and independent distributors that sell coffee by the kilogram, my experience with them has been... well, difficult.

After some research on the nternet, and a couple of phone calls to local wholesale coffee distributors, I've come to understand that the varieties and origins of beans that are exported from mexico as 100% high grown arabicas are very difficult to acquire locally in small scale quantities for home use.

Apparently, the mexican coffee industry lacks any form of quality certification, other than that of origin. So a shipment from a given state - say Oaxaca, for instance- will include a grab bag of robusta, high grown arabica, and others, all from different periods in the harvest cycle. This means there's also a very low quality control (as in crappy, rancid beans making up to 25% of the "blends").

To top it off, the one and only coffee shop in town that sold kenya, sumatra and costa-rica beans is all out! and there's no shipments expected anytime soon, pending legislation in the senate regarding coffee imports and exports!

Oh! And forget about asking for green beans for home roasting! (Which I thought I'd try after finding a stovetop popper at target on a recent stateside trip ). The smallest order I could find at one place was for 30 Kg! (that's about 66 pounds), and they couldn't even tell me if the beans were arabica or not...

Anyway, more than a question, I'm just trying to vent out my frustration here. Since there's really nobody in my immediate circle of friends for me to share this with. There's absolutely no "specialty coffee" culture in these parts, and the growing epidemic of star$ is just making everything worst!

[another_jim]

It seems ironic, but youi are right. The coffee exporting countries tend to lock up their specialty coffees for export, and they are hard to find in the country itself. Moreover, unlike the Carribean or South America, espresso is not the normal coffee in Latin America, so blends of commodity coffee optimized for espresso are also hard to find. Your best bet could be shipping in green coffee from the States.

[HB]

We feel your pain! I lived in Paris for two years and we dined out at least twice a week. The withdrawal pains were not pleasant upon our return to Cary, North Carolina. Thankfully the city has grown up over the years and there's options besides Starbucks, McDonald's, Chili's, and Applebee's.

(Not to add insult to injury, but Counter Culture sells a good Mexican coffee from Pluma ("a growing region within the Mexican state of Oaxaca" according to their website). It isn't an espresso blend, but they use it for their decaf and it is quite good.)

[Alex_chef2000]

Hi there, I have a Coffee House in Queretaro, we are proud to sell the best coffees available from Chiapas, Mexico. If you need more information, please contact me in English or Spanish at: alejandro@tips.com.mx

Alex.:

[chino]

Your best bet could be shipping in green coffee from the States.

I was actually trying that option out last night. I got this answer from sweet maria's today:

I am sorry but we will not ship orders to Mexico due to shipment problems we had in the past. Both UPS and mail shipments seem to encounter lots of delays and extra fees or just plain get lost on the way to Mexico so it is not worth the aggravation to ship there. I am sorry

My personal experience concurs with theirs, BTW. I have a new lead though. A friend of a friend who owns a commercial pre-packaged coffee brand invited me to check out his shop! So I'll be taking a field trip sometime soon and see what I can learn. Apparently he roasts his own beans over there, so worst case scenario I can grab a fistful of greens when he's not looking just to try out my popper

[vendetta]

Hey, you should try Cafe Passmar. It is toasted and packaged by the actual mexican barista champion, Salvador Benitez. He has his cafe in the heart of the market that is in Avenida Coyoacan, passing the viaducto, you'll see a cinema and a gas station. A block ahead, left side of the street is the market.

Tell him that Moises from Pachuca sent you. The coffee is pretty good, not as acid as most of the coffee you get in the country, much fresher. It's a three state blend: Chiapas, Veracruz and Guerrero, and as far as I've tried, it's the best national coffee I've tasted in the market, at a very reasonable price. Well, it's the blend of my cafeteria, Espresso Central at Pachuca.

Greetings, and give it a try.

Moe.
Espresso Central

[Kuban111]

Hola,
Vendetta,

Man I wish you had posted that last month. I just got back from there.
Had the pleasure of going around and trying out the local espresso.

I enjoyed the coffee and visiting Mexico City, Cuatepec, Xico, Oaxaca & Veracruz.

Here are some of my photos. http://tinyurl.com/2qkm6q

I would love to get that blend you described.
That's the blend I enjoyed along with the Plumas Alta I was drinking in Oaxaca.

Let me know if there is a way I could.

Thanks
Michael

[heyduke]

I'll be moving to San Cristobal de las Casas, Chipas next spring and while there is plenty of coffee grown there I was wondering about other origins. So far I have been unable to find anybody who will ship to Mexico from the states. This could become a problem I would hate to miss out on all of the good kenyans, Brazilian. and other coffee's in the world.