The Coffee
Mexico Maragogype
Region: Chiapas
Processing: Washed
Varietal: Maragogype
Tasting: Sugarcane, Milk Chocolate, Orange Jam
The Producer
Finca Las Chicharras (“Cicada” in English) took 5th in the Cup Of Excellence competition in Mexico 2018, and it’s no surprise when cupping coffee from the farm. This is quite a feat for E-Cafe Chiapas, the operation who runs the farm. They began as an exporter in 2007, with their first container shipping to the US, built a processing plant in 2013, and didn’t purchase their own finca until 2015 — that farm was Finca Las Chicharras. It’s an insane timeframe, to go from first time farm owner to COE winner in the span of 3 years. The group is not only mastering coffee production, they also have in place many social programs to improve the lives of people who work with them, or live in the surrounding areas. Their main operations outside of coffee are the Icathus School, a boarding school for underprivileged children, affordable financing offered to producers, and working with community and government leaders to improve infrastructure, education, and health. These operations are funded by the government and the sales of their coffee. Finca Las Chicharras operates not only as an award winning coffee farm for E-Cafe, but also as a research and development facility where all farmers who work with the group are invited to learn how to improve their own practices.
This handpicked lot is sent to the fermentation tanks for 10-14 hours before being washed clean of mucilage. After it’s been washed the coffee is sorted and then put on raised beds in a greenhouse for drying that maintains a temperature of 30-35℃. The coffee will go through destoning next to ensure no foreign matter makes it through the process, and then the coffee is hulled to remove the parchment. With the coffee processed down to green coffee, E-Cafe runs it through a color sorter, and finishes with size grading to be sure that the resulting coffee is uniform and without defects for the best quality across the lot.
This lot is a single variety called Maragogype which was discovered to be a natural mutation of the Typica variety in 1870. Maragogype coffees are known for high quality, low yeild, and very large bean size. E-Cafe submitted this coffee to the Cup Of Excellence (COE) competition where it was scored 86.95 points by an international panel of tasters in Mexico in 2024.
The Importer
Bodhi Leaf
Bodhi Leaf Coffee importers are the OG importers for Makeworth Coffee's jump into roasting. Based out of Anaheim, CA Bodhi Leaf is one of the most elite focused and quality multi-origin importers out there. Time and time again, they have provided us coffees that hit the spot as the "wow this coffee is good" feeling. We hope you've enjoyed (and continue to enjoy!) their incredible work helping us source some amazing coffees.
Tim, our head of coffee, has a long background with Bodhi Leaf having sourced coffee through their network for several years in previous coffee roles. Defintely pop into their website to learn more about their wild and wise background. Great coffee, great people!
The Roast
The Brew
The Perspective
A couple aspects of this coffee really drew our attention to it when first reviewed on the cupping table. First, we have a strong interest in balancing our menu with coffees that present balanced and more nuanced tastings. In the cup, this coffee really is everything to like about a highly sweet, citric and chocolatey profile. We also were excited to select, for the first time, the Maragogype varietal; known for a similar profile to its varietal child, Pacamara, the Maragogype is fragile and susceptible-to-damage varietal... but well worth the taste when the yield presents.
On the sentimental side of things, Mexican coffee has a sweet spot in our heart as the first origin we ever roasted as a roasting company. After cupping and enjoying, we knew this coffee would be a great fit to our 2025 menu.
