Sierra Norte · 1,500m · Marsellesa & Sarchimor · Experimental Cherry-Maceration Washed (36h Ferment) · 86.25

Las Delicias sits in Oaxaca's Sierra Norte, in the municipality of San Juan Juquila Vijanos — mountain country, 1,500 meters up, where the cloud settles over the rows most mornings before it burns off. This is where Lourdes Yescas grows coffee.

The varieties in this coffee are Marsellesa and Sarchimor, hybrids bred for resistance to roya, the leaf rust that tore through southern Mexico's coffee belt starting in 2012. It's a practical choice, not a romantic one. What happens after the cherry comes off the tree is where the interesting work starts.

The process is experimental, the whole ripe cherry goes into a wooden batea — no de-pulping first — for a 36-hour fermentation before then being pulped, fully washed, and cleaned. Fermenting the whole cherry prior to de-pulping pulls more of the fruit's sugar and bright acidity into the bean; it's a process that can go wrong as easily as it goes right, here it went right: 86.25 points.

Drying happens with equal care — the washed parchment is spread on raised wooden beds across a tin roof and turned by hand until the moisture sits exactly where it needs to be. As you can see from the photos, this coffee was handled with much love by Lourdes,  and roasted with much care by Yez and the entire team at Café Rústiko in the heart of Oaxaca.

In the cup, that fermentation shows as layered fruit rather than a single note. Lime and grapefruit sit up front; underneath, dried fig carries a concentrated sweetness, while peach rounds out the middle with the softer note of stone fruit. It's a spread a standard washed process rarely pulls out of these two varieties.

• Producer: Lourdes Yescas

• Origin: Las Delicias, San Juan Juquila Vijanos, Oaxaca

• Region: Sierra Norte

• Elevation: 1,500 masl

• Variety: Marsellesa, Sarchimor

• Process: Experimental Cherry-Maceration Washed — 36h whole-cherry fermentation in wooden batea before pulping and washing

• Cupping Score: 86.25

• Roast: Medium