La Montanita is a coffee we have bought for years now. Owned by Antonio Rene Aguilar Lemus, it is a fairly small farm of 17.5 Hecatares in total, planted entirely with the large-bean Pacamara cultivar. If you are not familiar with it, Pacamara is a cross between a naturally-occuring hybrid Pacas and the so-called "elephant-bean" cultivar, Maragogype (known for it's low-yield trees with huge bean size). The result is a non-traditional cup character with medium body, bright and lively acidity and unusual flavor profiles. The farm was handed down through the Aguilar family. The Aguilars run their own wet-mill so all steps of the coffee cultivation and processing are under the control of the farm (a true Estate coffee). While the farm is not organic certified, like many coffee farms it could be, the Aguilars do not use herbicides and practice manual weed control. They use organic fertilizers like chicken manure, coffee pulp and they count on nature for insect control. La Montanita is located in the Alotepec Mountain Range and has excellent altitude for coffee (1550 meters) which accounts for the slowly-maturing, dense coffee seeds and better acidity in the cup. But in the case of Pacamara, a lot of the cup character comes from this unusual cultivar. La Montañita placed several times in the Cup of Excellence, including #2 place in 2006. We offered this coffee way back in '04, and last year we bought the coffee as a "National Winner" from the CoE, and this year it made the final auction where we snapped it up.