Mexico - Salomon Garcia Gesha

Salomon Garcia is a force of nature. The Head of Union San Pedro (USP) and one of the most driven and inspirational coffee producers we know, he is the driver behind the USP co-op and his coffee fields are something of focal point of the group’s production.

Salomon operates his coffee fields as 'demonstrative fields' to showcase all of the projects USP advocate. Here there are well managed shade covered coffee trees that have either been stumped or replaced with newer seedlings, and compatible crops planted alongside the coffee to improve the fields bio-sphere and generate additional income (vanilla, cacao, cardamom and cinnamon).

Salomon's fields are without a doubt some of the best managed coffee fields in Oaxaca and it is therefore no surprise that his Gesha plantings are thriving there. There is still not sufficient quantity of Gesha for even x1  standard bag of exportable coffee, so this single bag lot is a mixture of Gesha and Pluma Hidalgo, the Sierra Sur’s local mutation of Typica.

The name “Pluma Hidalgo” comes from the clouds that gather at the mountain peaks – particularly in the afternoon as warm coastal air hits the cooler mountain climates. These clouds take the form of a feather. Hidalgo comes from one of the fathers of Mexican Independence, the priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla.

You will notice that farm names have not been provided for these coffees. In Mexico, farm names for small scale producers such as these are very rare. This is because the average producer here owns and works on several small fields scattered around their village.

Each village has its own structure for organising coffee production. Some are organised as private entities, where land is bought, sold, and passed onto children. Others are entirely communal, where parcels of land are shared and tended as a collective. Around 90% of the land in Oaxaca is communal. Some of the only private lands in the Oaxacan coffee regions are in the Sierra Sur and Mazateca.

A natural Mexican Gesha is an unusual micro lot, and we are proud to have secured this coffee for Craft House.