Mexico Cristal

In the Cup: Milk chocolate and toasted nuts with caramel sweetness, a whisper of citrus, and clean, balanced acidity.

Process: Washed

Regions: Chiapas, Oaxaca & Veracruz

Variety: Bourbon, Typica, Mundo Novo

Elevation: 1000–1800 MASL

Country: Mexico

Harvest: November–March

Cristal is Mexico in a single cup — a blend of smallholder coffees drawn from the country's three great growing states: Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Veracruz. It comes from a sourcing program built specifically to give small farms a steady, dependable market for the bulk of their harvest, not just their standout micro-lots — so every bag quietly backs the growers who form the backbone of Mexican coffee. Grown between 1,000 and 1,800 meters on farms that often run just one to five hectares, many of them in the buffer zones around the El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve, it's clean, honest, everyday coffee with a real story behind it.

Like most Mexican coffee, this lot is fully washed: the cherries are depulped the day they're picked, fermented for 12 to 18 hours to loosen the fruit, then rinsed clean and dried on patios and raised beds. That classic treatment is what gives Cristal its tidy, transparent character — milk chocolate and toasted nuts up front, a caramel sweetness underneath, and just enough citrusy brightness to keep it lively. We roast it to a true medium, right in its sweet spot, where the chocolate and nuts step forward without losing that clean acidity. It's a forgiving, endlessly drinkable cup — as happy as your everyday drip as it is anchoring a shot of espresso.