This selection from Juan Jose Moguel ranked fourth in the Cafe Imports Lo Mejor De Mexico competition. Mexican coffees can sometimes be overlooked as far as quality, but this competition proves otherwise.
Nueva Linda is a Specialty Coffee Estate located in the Sierra Madre mountains of Southern Mexico in the state of Chiapas. The farm shares a buffer with the Triunfo Biospehere reserve, a tropical cloud forest preserve of some 50,000 acres, which helps to temper a changing climate and provide rich soil and clean water. This farm has also received a Rain Forest Alliance certification.
Don Octavio Moguel Farrera started in coffee farming as a driver in another farm, from there a love to produce coffee was born. After years of effort and hard work he purchased a small farm and began his life of quality coffee production.
Welcome to my Table, here in the corner of this cafe. Today we’re sipping the Mexico Finca Nueva Linda, from Spotted Cow Coffee Company in Mill Creek, Washington. Feel free to pull up a chair.
THE BASICS:
region: Chiapas, Mexico
farm: Finca Nueva Linda
producer: Don Octavio Moguel Farrera
association: N/A
elevation: 1250 – 1550 meters above sea level
cultivars: Mundo Nova, Caturra
process: fully washed, patio dried
certifications: Rainforest Alliance
THE BREW:
method: Hario V60
grind: 17
coffee: 30 g
water: 480 mL
bloom: 1:00
pour: 2:30 concentric pour, 1:00 drop
THE COFFEE:
The aroma of the Mexico Finca Nueva Linda is sweet and, even though it doesn’t have any floral qualities to it, it does has a certain elegance to it; it gently wafts out of the cup with fragrances of chocolate, brown sugar, applesauce, and green grape.
Taking my first few sips of the coffee immediately post-brew, a sweet and creamy blanket spreads over the palate. This coffee is absolutely beautiful and incredibly delicious, with each sip being characterized by milk chocolate, toffee, honey, and cane sugar. There’s also a bit of fruit juiciness happening while the cup is still piping hot, with a silky malic acidity that streams down the center and sides of the tongue.
As the cup cools off, the flavors up front don’t go away; rather, they congeal to become one sweet sugar browning flavor and they fade just a little bit, allowing bright and silky fruits to come to the forefront of every sip: granny smith apple, red grape, Asian pear, quince, and sweet juicy bing cherry.
Light body; creamy/silky mouthfeel; malic acidity; clean finish.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Incredibly, Spotted Cow Coffee Company made one of the fastest quality turnarounds of all time, going from a very run of the mill small town coffee roasting operation to one of the best specialty roasters in the Seattle area in less than one year. Last year, around this time, Spotted Cow was sourcing cheap coffees and over roasting them to mask their imperfections; this year, they’re sourcing really fantastic coffees that have me jumping over the moon.
All four coffees they sent me were very solid, and their Mexico Finca Nueva Linda might have been the best of the bunch.
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Andrew is a husband, father, dog lover, craft beverage enthusiast, content creator, and niche market Internet celebrity. Formerly of A Table in the Corner of the Cafe and The Pulitzer Project and contributor to Barista Magazine and Mental Floss, he’s been writing on the Internet for years.