She smiled as she told me how her mom had made pozole and invited the whole family over. She said: “If you thought I was getting worked up during the other game, you should see how I am at home, shouting at the TV and jumping on the furniture.” Now I smiled, picturing her carrying on the same way my aunt does watching UNC basketball.

Back home in North Carolina, my family is getting ready to go to the beach, trying to restart a tradition that broke last year after my Uncle Steve died. We went every July for 16 years. It was my reset point between summer camp, or a summer job at the pool, or a summer internship, and school. It was the last gasp of summer.

We’d read and swim, then rinse off and cook dinner. Shark Week or the Olympics were on the TV, depending on the year, and I’d cringe at back-to-school commercials. We’d bring blueberries we picked off our bushes, knowing that when we returned, the birds would have eaten the last of them for the year.

In Oaxaca, the blueberries aren’t right. They’re bloated, indigo, and complacent in supermarket clamshell containers. The months we call “summer” in North Carolina are cooler and rainy in Oaxaca. We had a three-day gray stretch after Mexico lost the World Cup game.

I’m seasonally disoriented. Even though I’ve declared my song of the summer and celebrated my birthday, it’s hard to tell where I am without the beach trip.

The power went out, maybe because of the rain, maybe because the squirrels had chewed through the cables. It was dusk. Jane and I scrounged up every candle in the house and lit them on the table on the porch. We marveled about the olden days, before electricity, and started to tell stories. Suddenly we were tired, and three hours had passed. We ruined the tablecloth with melted wax.

We do, at least, have graduation season in common. The other day, Jane and I were running errands, and between stops we sat on the low stone wall outside the Santo Domingo church. A mariachi group appeared, and they serenaded a graduate standing to our left who held a bouquet of flowers and smiled abashedly to her family. After a couple songs Jane teared up, and we congratulated the family and left.

I go to my neighbor’s house for English class. A couple weeks ago, her fourteen-year-old sister arrived with a gaggle of friends. Their music and laughter floated through the open window. When we finished class, my student asked: “Do you like pozole?”

Downstairs, her mom heated a cartoonishly large pot on the stove. Through the open door to the patio, I could see knobby knees and empty bowls slicked with red broth. “Teenagers eat a lot!” the mom said. She dunked a coffee cup into the olla to ladle the stew, her arm disappearing up to the armpit.

The pattern that used to reset me is gone. Gathered around their family table, though, I was perfectly happy to hold the course. We piled shredded cabbage and radish and lots of lime onto our pozole, and we talked about music. When our bowls were empty, we danced.

“Hold on just one second,” he had told me, though not exactly in those words. The Mumbai native doesn’t fully speak Spanish or English. He learned them by working in kitchens in Mexico and England. Even though he can’t read or write either one, he gets his point across.

He rummaged around his spice stores and emerged with two pieces of cinnamon: Indian and Mexican. Indian spices are stronger, spicier, than Mexican spices, he had told me. And here was the proof.

He broke off a tiny piece of the Indian cinnamon and told me to suck on it. I did. It tasted just like a Red Hot candy and reminded me wholeheartedly that cinnamon is the bark of a tree. The thick curl had the texture of a crocodile’s back.

Then Dabi broke a bit of Mexican cinnamon into my open hand. “Chúpalo,” he said. I put it on my tongue, and the difference was stark. This one was suave, reminiscent of a snickerdoodle. Even its texture was more smooth, like a parchment scroll.

Dabi owns Mónica Restaurante Hindú, located on the main drag into the town of San Felipe del Agua, about 20 minutes north of Oaxaca’s centro histórico. He opened it in 2016 and named it after his daughter, who is also a chef in India.

There are four other Indian restaurants in Oaxaca, he told me, and five others called Mónica. But his is the only Indian Mónica, he said.

I heard the whir of the blender and knew what that meant: mango lassi. I sipped it, sweet and cool, as we talked.

I asked Dabi if he would stock up on spices when he goes to India later this year to visit family, and he said no. It’s more expensive there. He gets the spices for Mónica from Mexico City.

He illustrated the differences between Indian and Mexican spices through laurel, too — bay leaves. The first one he placed on my blank notebook page was large, the size of my palm. The Mexican leaves were the size of my pinky.

Mónica is in our rotation. We always get chicken tikka masala, palak paneer, and the Mónica special (a lamb gravy, with Dabi’s mother’s spice blend). He knows this; as soon as we sit down, before he even places menus before us, he asks “chicken tikka masala?” If we’re waffling about how much naan to order, he tells us to get one for each person. He’s always right.

The six-table dining room has a tiendita with pashminas, jewelry, incense, and trinkets from India. There are portraits of Indian people on the orange wall. On the blue wall, opposite the street, he has a small altar, and another fridge.

Dabi’s restaurant shares other Mexican sensibilities, too. When I watched him cook our to-go order that day, he started by opening the fridge and pulling out two yogurt tubs with mismatched tops. He set them next to our cleaned-out yogurt tubs I had brought for our para llevar. I ordered two naans, one for each of us.

That luscious naan. He grabbed a tupperware from the fridge containing a grayish dough. It didn’t look like much. He pinched off two blobs, rolled them into smooth mounds, and plopped them on the counter.

When we dine in, Dabi serves the naan in a basket lined with a colorful woven towel — the Mexican kind, with white fringe on the ends — the same way a doña places tortillas on the table at her comedor. The other dishes come in Mexican crockery, and we pass them around, family-style. There’s always Bollywood or mantra music playing on the TV in the corner.

In the kitchen, he has a simple set up: three gas burners, a shelf below, a worktable adjacent. The fridge stands opposite a door which, even when open to the street, doesn’t do much to alleviate the heat.

Dabi fired up two well-loved sauce pans and poured in his prepped gravy bases from the yogurt containers. He procured a hunk of frozen spinach for the palak paneer, which doesn’t actually have paneer. When he tried using it, he said, it came out with the texture of plastic. So now he uses a Mexican substitute — panela cheese, which gets all soft and melty.

He stirred; the sauces reduced over the flames. When one of them was ready, and a burner freed up, he placed a flat, round pan on top. Do we want garlic on our naan? Of course. He chopped it up finely and daubed it around the dough ball. Dabi stretched out the dough with his hands and a rolling pin before batting it between his palms like pizza dough. It went onto the metal pan, which cooked it just like a comal cooks a tortilla. Onto the hot naan went the butter.

Dabi started cooking when he was 14, taught by his mother. He’s now 54. He worked in Indian restaurants in England for 10 years, including a restaurant and catering operation called The Cumin Restaurant in Nottingham. He came to Oaxaca because of his brother, also a chef, who was living in Mexico City.

Mexico and India are similar, Dabi said, except for their spices. He likes Oaxacan food — tlayudas, memelas, and especially barbacoa. That’s what he eats when he’s not in the restaurant.

I see him around. He’s our neighbor down the street, though most often I see him hanging out in front of his restaurant, like a couple weeks ago. I stood at the nearby bus stop wearing my Mexico jersey, and he told me they were showing the World Cup game at the new baseball stadium. “Are you going?” I asked. “No,” he shrugged.

Her stride cut short, the girl took a step back, regained her balance, and kept walking alongside a woman I presumed to be her mother. It wasn’t serious, and it wasn’t shocking, either. People have gotten used to ducking and weaving around the encampment of public school teachers on strike in what is normally the hub of tourist and government activity.

Around 80,000 teachers across the state of Oaxaca belonging to the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) began an indefinite strike last week, thousands camping in Oaxaca’s Historic Center.

They’ve left an estimated 800,000 public school students without classes, one month before the school year is slated to end. I asked a friend who has a school-aged son what he’s doing, then. “Well, he’s not going to school,” my friend said with a shrug. What can they do?

Having worked as an education beat reporter for local newspapers, I have a hard time fathoming this scope. I covered student walkouts and teacher union demands, but nothing that rose to this level — or that caused so many students to miss class for so long.

Thousands of the teachers from the Oaxaca union traveled to Mexico City to press demands on state and federal government. A friend of mine was one of them. He camped out for a week, then returned to Oaxaca for professional and personal reasons. But he would have rather stayed in Mexico protesting. “To defend my rights,” he said.

The teachers’ strike is annual, and this year marks the 20th anniversary of when things went sideways. People still reference the year 2006, the deadly social unrest, and the scars it left. It’s part of the fabric of Oaxaca. Now, the teachers are still calling for reform, and locals feel exasperated.

The union’s primary demand is improved benefits to their retirement and pension plans. A teacher and primary school director involved with the union explained to me that before, female teachers could retire after 28 years of service and males after 30. Their retirement funds used to be managed in a solidarity pension model. Now, teachers are only eligible for retirement and pensions after age 65, and pensions come from individual accounts managed by private funds.

They’re also calling for more vacation time, better pay, and better classroom conditions, especially in rural schools.

Some people say the teachers are asking for benefits that no public employee receives, or would expect to receive. My teacher friend said they’re making these demands for the benefit of all, not just teachers.

In the past week and a half, the strike has escalated. There was a standoff in a nearby village, with residents and authorities rejecting teachers’ occupation efforts. The teachers have also blockaded the airport and a major gasoline storage and distribution terminal.

I spoke with a rug weaver who travels twice a week from the village of Teotitlán del Valle into the city to sell his wares. With gas becoming scarcer, he said he’s going to need to conserve what he’s already got in the tank.

People are losing business at a time of year when tourism levels are at their lowest. Local storefronts are totally obstructed by encampments. Multiple guests at the bed and breakfast where I help out cancelled their trip when they saw what was going on.

But walking through the downtown plantón — occupation — the tone is tranquilo. Teachers sit in portable chairs, fanning themselves, talking to each other and on the phone. They come in shifts from across the state, setting up camp in sections with their other regional union members.

Vendors take advantage of the log jams to hawk clothes, jewelry, and hats; as well as tamales, tacos, elotes, empanadas, raspados, and jicaletas. Many display handwritten signs in support of the movement.

The strike started much the same in May 2006, people have told me, but things escalated when the government tried to break up the encampments with tear gas and batons. Other social organizations joined the teachers’ cause, and the occupation turned into a broader movement calling for the governor’s resignation. The standoff reached a boiling point in October, when two protestors and an independent journalist died during attacks by paramilitary groups allegedly sent by the government.

This year’s strike has only just begun. In the past, they’ve lasted for months. Vamos a ver what happens.

I remember, of course, that he died on Easter Sunday. He wanted to go home, he said, half lucid in the hospital bed.

“Maybe he didn’t mean home on Steel Bridge Road,” Grammy said later, after he did go. Maybe he meant he wanted to go to the house of God.

I noticed their shared anniversary when I went to visit his grave. I walked five miles from my parents’ house, the house where I grew up, to Euphronia Church, where our people are buried: Papa and Dink and Mama T and Papa T. Grammy’s spot next to Papa is ready whenever she is. (She’s nowhere near ready.)

I’m bad with remembering dates — birthdays, anniversaries. I know they’re important, but numbers just don’t stick in my mind like that. But, for some of my friends, I can find their dates with a quick Google. Their obituaries have all that information.

Sometimes my body remembers their birthday or anniversary before my mind does. A heaviness arrives, like my pockets are full of sand. I have vivid dreams. I think I see their face in a crowd, but it’s actually someone who doesn’t look anything like them.

My season of grief begins in October, with Katherine. But is her anniversary the 30th or the 31st? It was late on the 30th when she crossed the street, and a car was coming too fast. But I don’t know whether her official anniversary is that night or early on the 31st. What I do know is it’s been four years. Five Christmases she’s been gone, her mom pointed out to me and our friend when we were visiting a few months ago.

I know Owen’s anniversary is in January, but I can’t remember exactly when. The semester had just started when I found out. Of course I remember how our mutual friend had called me with the news, how I collapsed on my bed and writhed, hot and cold, panic and sobbing, like fire ants crawling all over my body.

In March we have Sierra’s anniversary. April is Papa’s.

I can’t remember Grammy’s birthday, either, even though I grew up in the next house down the street from her. When will she turn 90? It’s astounding she’s already in her upper 80s. The woman is still gardening and sewing and volunteering and churchgoing.

So, standing in front of her tombstone — with her birthday etched in, and a blank space after the dash — I did the math: 2027. I repeated it to myself until it stuck.

Because I know that next year, wherever I am in August, I’ll come home for Grammy’s 90th birthday. This one I’ll remember.

I didn’t grow up with neighbors, aside from my grandparents on my mom’s side. Our houses are a five-minute walk apart on a two-lane country road in the middle of nowhere, North Carolina. What I lacked in childhood bike races and neighborhood-wide games of flashlight tag, I more than gained with Grammy camp over the summer and helping in their extensive backyard garden.

So now, saying the words “my neighbors” gives me a small thrill. When I moved into an apartment in Chapel Hill my junior year of college, I got a real kick out of how close all the houses were — connected by sidewalks! — and the way I could see what people were watching on TV at dusk, when the light has faded enough to turn on a lamp but not enough to lower the blinds.

I took a lot of walks in my first neighborhood, because we were groping our way through the COVID-19 pandemic and everything that meant: Zoom classes trapped in our apartments; university leadership saying everything was fine, then daily notifications about clusters of outbreaks; depression.

I saw a lot of other people walking, too: college students, parents with young kids, older people, dogs. It was the one place we were free from masks, though we still didn’t normally engage with each other.

On one of these walks, I turned a corner and caught a whiff of basil. Reactively — not really directed at anyone — I said: “That smells amazing.”

A woman popped up from the lush stalks in her raised garden beds. “Please take some,” she said, one fist full of fresh basil, the other holding shears. She had already made all the pesto she could handle, she said, and there was still more basil in the garden.

I was surprised but said thank you, and told her about my grandparents’ garden — the basil and tomatoes and peppers and blueberries, the excessive amounts of pesto we’d freeze in ice cube trays. We chatted for a bit, and I learned she was a law professor.

I went home and called my mom to tell her about the basil and the nice neighbor. I didn’t have pine nuts or parmesan, so I made basil oil instead, blanching the leaves and blending them with olive oil. I tossed some cherry tomatoes in the oil, roasted them, and ate them over pasta. It was delicious.

Soledad’s daughter is about to go to college, in California. That’s her dream, anyway. I’m trying to help her get there. More than a tutor, Soledad said, we’re looking for a friend. A neighbor, I said.

Right before I left Oaxaca to visit my family, she gifted me an alebrije — a wood-carved armadillo with a long, pointy tail, elaborately painted in vivid patterns. It’s the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen.

When she took me to the airport, she brought gifts for my family, too. My bags were already bursting at the seams, but we somehow made them fit. Mexicans know how to pack! she said.

Coffee was just the pretext for the gathering.

The moments that stand out most from the weeklong coffee-themed trip I hosted in Oaxaca last month aren’t all about coffee. It’s everything that happened around them.

It was the way that lucha, and the café de olla we drank the next morning, reminded one person of spending time with her grandmother.

Watching another person return to the same family weaving workshop in a village she had visited ten years earlier.

Walking through rows of agave as a mezcalero harvested a piña, hoisting it up as if it weighed nothing.

A free afternoon that turned into a shared shopping trip, two of us buying the same tank top and then both wearing it out salsa dancing.

Two people who had just met getting a snack together at the visitor center at Monte Albán — mixing their potato chips into a combination we kept coming back to all week: limón and adobadas.

A chemist in the group absolutely lighting up during the coffee roasting demonstration.

Teaching Mexican slang in the backseat of the van on the way to the coffee farm—only to realize our host and driver had been listening the whole time, and had a few additions of his own.

Breakfast in a pueblo comedor: huevos con chorizo, frijoles, tortillas. Our host pulling out his Comandante grinder and a plastic bag of geisha, making coffee for us in a pot of hot water.

And maybe most of all, the way the group came together.

Except for the people who arrived in pairs, no one knew each other at the start. By the end, we all gelled — choosing to have dinner together even on nights when nothing was planned, asking thoughtful questions during visits with artisans and producers, taking notes, paying attention.

Coffee brought everyone there.

The rest is what made it matter.

We’d have to wait for him, he told my reporting partner and me. Then we could all sit down, eat, and talk.

This was in March 2022, during a reporting trip for a journalism class at UNC Chapel Hill.

I entered the kitchen to start getting to know Eduardo, and to get an early glimpse of our meal. There were onions, green peppers, and tomatoes; some fish; oil heating in a big pot. He shooed me away like the flies that were also a little too eager. We’d talk when it was ready.

After we had wandered around the inn for awhile, he set the table for three and brought out big bowls of rice and stew.

I asked what this dish was called, and he said, “It’s called Eduardo’s Lunch.”

We ate, and complimented his cooking, and settled into a conversation. The island of San Cristóbal has changed over his nearly 40 years living there, he said. There’s an economic need for tourism but it hurts the environment. He first came to the island as a research assistant, fell in love with its natural wonders, and decided to open eco-friendly accommodations for tourists.

It felt rude to have my notebook out at the table, but I didn’t want to forget any questions. This was the only opportunity we’d have to talk to him face-to-face. My voice recorder felt out of place, too, but that one was essential.

Plus, it helped me record his recipe for Eduardo’s Lunch.

“I first fry a mixture of garlic, onion, green pepper, and green onions, long. I fry it. Then I put some achiote. It’s a little seed which give color, like saffron. I first fry that. After I fry that for about 15 minutes, I add water and add tomato. Then, when it boils for at least half an hour — boil, boil, boil, boil, boil — then I filter it, because I don't want to eat the rest of the onion, the green pepper, I want it to be clean. So I filter and throw all the remains of onions and green peppers. I got what I wanted: the flavor. Once the sauce was clean, I add some peanuts, like peanut butter, but not peanut butter like the one you eat in United States. This is just roasted and milled peanuts. Then mixed it, mixed it, and then, when it melts, I add the fish and the shrimp, because they cannot cook more than five minutes. At the end I add some corriander. Some salt and some black pepper, too. That was all.”

Back in North Carolina, it was surprisingly easy to find achiote in the grocery store. I made Eduardo’s Lunch for friends and family, telling them about the grumpy innkeeper in the Galápagos and the way people on the island don’t sacrifice a good meal for work. Actually, it’s sometimes the most important work.

My team was creating a multimedia project about the tourism industry in San Cristóbal for a journalism class at UNC Chapel Hill. We had 10 days on the island to do all our reporting.

In a curious coincidence, on the same dates four years later, two of those teammates and I are collaborating on a story in Oaxaca.

In Galápagos, we portrayed the tension between the economic need for tourism and the way the industry often prioritizes visitors over locals. The documentary and article feature a surf and skate rental store owner who runs a low-cost camp for local kids.

True to form, I initially wanted our whole project to revolve around coffee. Now, in Oaxaca, that is our focus.

On the island, I learned time has a different sense. I learned the value of showing up to talk to someone, especially to interview them, face-to-face. I learned what hospitality means in its true sense, not just as an industry term.

That project showed me I was not only functional, but fluent in Spanish. I spoke with potential sources before the trip, interviewed people on the island, interpreted for my teammates, and translated our final piece to Spanish.

Since then, I’ve realized our thesis rings true across many touristic places, including Oaxaca. A local economy dependent on tourism can create challenges for locals when it comes to housing, cost of living, and outside cultural influences. Sometimes their city doesn’t feel like theirs anymore.

When we look back on our student project from four years ago, we think it holds up for what it is, for the experience we had at the time. This time, we know we can produce something even better.

Staring at the ceiling, I realized the day marked three years since I first arrived in Oaxaca. I was ready to get back, so full of anticipation that everything around me made me think: “It’s OK, but it’s not Oaxaca.”

I needed to sleep, so I told myself a bedtime story. It was the story of my first day in Oaxaca.

The plane landed and we walked down a staircase onto the tarmac, surrounded by mountains. In the customs line, I spied on the text messages of the guy in front of me. He said something like, “Yeah, you can tell it’s a third world country.” I hadn’t thought of it like that before.

The truth is, I hadn’t thought through much of my first trip to Oaxaca, which was also my first time in Mexico. I didn’t even know there were mountains there. I had booked a one-way flight about a week beforehand.

I had graduated college in May, finished a corporate New York internship in August, and returned to my parents’ house, desperate to get out. During my senior year of college, I decided to postpone applying to full-time jobs, because I wanted to travel. COVID had taken away my study abroad opportunity, and I was determined to make my own international immersion experience, somewhere where I could speak Spanish, which I had studied since I was a kid but barely used outside the classroom.

I was using a website for travelers to look for work-trades, arrangements where I would work a few hours a day in a hostel or farm in exchange for a free place to stay, and I almost committed to a position in Peru. But my mom was freaked out by the idea of me going to live in a foreign country with a stranger from the internet. There was a Spanish-speaking country, however, that was closer to North Carolina, that she had been to recently, and that she loved: Mexico.

The short version of this story, the answer to the “How did you end up in Oaxaca?” question, is that I had a contact there, a friend of a friend.

The longer version is that there’s a chef in Chapel Hill named Bill Smith who is something of a local celebrity in the food scene. My aunt was his roommate in the college town after they graduated in the 70’s. Emerging from the pandemic, Bill started leading food tours with the owner of a bed and breakfast in Oaxaca. Her name is Jane, and she’s run the Casa Colonial for 35 years. Her daughter, Amanda, owned a bar for 13 years down the street from Bill’s restaurant.

“Why don’t you reach out to Jane?” my mom suggested.

So I emailed Jane introducing myself and pitching the work-trade idea, something along the lines of: “Hi, I’m Elizabeth. My mom stayed in your bed and breakfast earlier this year. I’m 22 years old, I just graduated from UNC Chapel Hill, and I’m fluent in Spanish. I’ll work for you for free if you’ll give me food and a place to stay.”

She wrote back: “Well, this is a novel idea.” She said they don’t comp rooms at the Casa, but she had a spare bedroom in her house. And she had some questions: Do you consider yourself an independent person? Have you travelled abroad? Do you know how to bake desserts? (I later found out she was making sure she wouldn’t have to mother me. It’s fun to tell this story with her, each of us sharing our sides like a married couple talking about how they met.)

She liked my answers, because she responded: “Come as soon as possible.”

The part that I don’t say as often, but that’s the most important, is that I was carrying a lot of grief at that time.

During my senior year, I lost three friends, a couple months between each one, in distinct and tragic ways. I was also mourning, I would later realize, the end of my college years, everything the pandemic took away, and the end of my relationship with my boyfriend of three years.

I wanted to experience Day of the Dead in Mexico, to learn about another culture’s perspective on death. But it turned out, everything leading up to Day of the Dead was even more healing.

The airport shuttle dropped me off at the Casa. Jane opened the door and I found myself in a lush tropical garden enclosed by colorful adobe walls. Jane greeted me and showed me to a room where I could rest — she was heading out for lunch plans. I was too wired to sleep. So I wandered around the zócalo, the main plaza, taking it all in. That evening, by then dark, we went to her house.

The next morning I saw what a beautiful place I was in. Jane and I sat on her porch and got to know each other. I eventually shared about my friends, and she told me about losing her husband in a car accident. That was the beginning of what would become our morning ritual: drinking coffee and chatting about our lives, our deaths, and everything in between. Despite our nearly 60-year age gap, we became fast friends.

I also quickly got to know people my age in the city. When I found I had lots of free time outside of the Casa, I walked into different cafes and pitched them on a work-trade: I’m a barista, I speak Spanish. I’ll work in exchange for food. A couple said no, but one said yes and threw in cash tips. I took an art workshop that introduced me to an amazing collective of artists.

Day of the Dead came and went, but I didn’t want to leave Oaxaca. So I kept extending my stay. The plan was to apply to journalism fellowships in the U.S. and return when I got one. All along, I was learning about Oaxaca and falling more in love with the city and my life there. In March, I got a fellowship offer. I didn’t want to take it, because I wasn’t ready to leave Oaxaca. But it was time to start my career, I decided with some resentment.

During the two years of the fellowship, I went back to Oaxaca to visit. Each time I picked up where I left off with my friends, and the city. I wanted to return.

So I did, last October. My life here looks different now. I’m working, building routines, figuring things out. But some things haven’t changed: the morning coffee conversations, the colorful walls, the sense that this city is still teaching me how to live.

Chatting over cups of coffee, the idea gradually crystallized.

The Specialty Coffee Association hosted its annual trade show in April 2025 in Houston, where coffee professionals from around the world converged. At the time, I was writing for a local newspaper in San Antonio, but I couldn’t shake my pull toward coffee. I knew I had to go.

I arrived that weekend thinking I wanted to be a coffee roaster. But as I wandered the convention center, teeming with more than 17,000 people, I sampled exceptional coffees and struck up conversations. Another path began to take shape.

Coincidentally, one of the first people I met was from Oaxaca, where I had lived for a year. She grew up in a family of coffee producers and now works as a professional roaster and cupper. Within minutes, we realized we knew some of the same people back in Oaxaca, including the owners and roasters of a downtown café.

“Let’s send them a selfie,” she said. They replied almost immediately.

I started realizing I’m too social to be a roaster, shut in a warehouse. I’m too curious to stay behind the bar in a café. I’m bilingual, familiar with Oaxaca, and deeply interested in how coffee connects people across cultures. I realized I could combine all of those things — with coffee as the throughline.

I was so inspired, and overstimulated, after the convention that on the drive back to San Antonio I turned off the music and rode in silence. Then, I turned on my voice recorder and gushed for over an hour about everything I had seen and done and all the people I talked to and all the things I learned — and ideas for small, coffee-centered visits in origin.

I’m not a tour guide. I’m a coffee nerd who has organized a trip centered on coffee and culture. My role is that of a facilitator: introducing travelers to the people who dedicate their lives to coffee, ceramics, weaving, and gastronomy, and letting them tell their story — interpreting between Spanish and English when needed. Everyone who hosts us is compensated for their time and expertise.

A week in Oaxaca doesn’t undo price volatility, climate risk, or generational inequities in coffee. This trip doesn’t promise transformation. Its purpose is learning — how coffee moves from seed to cup, and what gets lost when that story is oversimplified. This work is shaped in conversation with producers, roasters, and buyers who are interested in slower, more accountable forms of engagement in origin.

One of the things I love most about coffee is its hospitality. Tomorrow, I’m grateful to extend that hospitality, and to be guided by it, as I welcome curious coffee lovers to Oaxaca.

Cómo decidí dar mi primera experience de café en Oaxaca

Café, traducción y facilitación en Oaxaca

Conversando entre tazas de café, la idea fue tomando forma poco a poco.

La Specialty Coffee Association organizó su feria comercial anual en abril de 2025 en Houston, donde se reunieron profesionales del café de todo el mundo. En ese momento yo trabajaba como reportera para un periódico local en San Antonio, pero no lograba sacudirme mi atracción por el café. Sabía que tenía que ir.

Llegué ese fin de semana pensando que quería ser tostadora de café. Pero mientras recorría el centro de convenciones, lleno de más de 17,000 personas, probando cafés excepcionales y entablando conversaciones, empezó a perfilarse otro camino.

Casualmente, una de las primeras personas que conocí era de Oaxaca, donde yo había vivido durante un año. Creció en una familia de productores de café y ahora trabaja como tostadora y catadora profesional. En cuestión de minutos nos dimos cuenta de que conocíamos a algunas de las mismas personas en Oaxaca, incluidos los dueños y tostadores de un café en el centro de la ciudad.

“Mandémosles una selfie”, dijo.

Respondieron casi de inmediato.

Empecé a darme cuenta de que soy demasiado sociable para ser tostadora, encerrada en una bodega. Demasiado curiosa para quedarme detrás de la barra de un café. Soy bilingüe, conozco Oaxaca y me interesa profundamente cómo el café conecta a las personas a través de culturas. Me di cuenta de que podía combinar todas esas cosas, con el café como hilo conductor.

Salí de la convención tan inspirada —y tan sobreestimulada— que, en el camino de regreso a San Antonio, apagué la música y manejé en silencio. Luego encendí la grabadora de voz y hablé durante más de una hora sobre todo lo que había visto y hecho, todas las personas con las que había conversado, todo lo que había aprendido… y sobre ideas para visitas pequeñas, centradas en el café, en origen.

No soy guía turística. Soy una nerd del café que ha organizado un viaje enfocado en el café y la cultura. Mi papel es el de facilitadora: presentar a las personas que viajan a quienes dedican su vida al café, la cerámica, el tejido y la gastronomía, y permitirles contar su propia historia, interpretando entre español e inglés cuando es necesario. Todas las personas que nos reciben son compensadas por su tiempo y su experiencia.

Una semana en Oaxaca no deshace la volatilidad de los precios, los riesgos climáticos ni las desigualdades generacionales del café. Este viaje no promete transformación. Su propósito es el aprendizaje: entender cómo el café va de la semilla a la taza, y qué se pierde cuando esa historia se simplifica en exceso. Este trabajo se construye en diálogo con productores, tostadores y compradores interesados en formas más lentas y responsables de relacionarse en origen.

Una de las cosas que más me gusta del café es su hospitalidad. Mañana, agradezco poder extender esa hospitalidad —y dejarme guiar por ella— al recibir en Oaxaca a personas curiosas y amantes del café.

In specialty coffee, we talk about “origin” the way other industries talk about terroir — as something romantic, distant, and marketable.

Coffee is processed “in origin.” We go on “origin trips.” We describe flavor by origin: Ethiopian coffees are fruity and floral; Mexican coffees are chocolatey and nutty; Colombian coffees range from caramel to citrus.

I recently got the opportunity to “go to origin” in Oaxaca during harvest season with my friend, a local coffee professional. In two days, all the textbook terms I had heard in my seven years of learning about specialty coffee suddenly became tangible — and made less and less sense.

In the Sierra Sur, about four hours south of the capital city, no one said the word “origin.” In fact, the origin of coffee in their community is only half-preserved in oral history. They’ve worked with coffee plants their whole lives. So did their parents. So did their grandparents. At some point — no one seems sure exactly when — outsiders brought the plant to cultivate and export.

Walking down the main road of the pueblo, my friend pointed up and said, “Mira.” I looked around and saw a hand-painted sign in Zapoteco, the indigenous language, and a tall tree with white flowers. I said, “What? The flowers? They’re pretty.” She said “No, behind them.” Finally, I spotted them: ruby-red coffee cherries gleaming among the dark green foliage.

Our local host took a sharp left. Stepping over the curb, she led us off the concrete road and into the forest. We were walking through what the industry would call a “microlot,” but here the community calls it a “parcela.” I saw that they don’t farm rows and rows of coffee plants; they cultivate plots of land with coffee and corn and mangoes and other crops, where they also live with two or three generations of family.

As we followed the path that had appeared, the foliage grew denser. I saw branches full of coffee cherries, in varying stages of ripeness. We greeted two women picking, piscando, into wicker baskets strapped across their bodies. This was the segunda vuelta, their second pass through the scattered coffee plants, picking the ripe cherries. There would be two or three more vueltas to finish out the harvest season.

On a concrete patio where coffee was drying in the sun, next to the depulping machine, I saw plastic buckets heaping with coffee cherries, ready to be poured into tanks of water. If a cherry floated, it indicated a defect and was separated from the rest of the harvest. I looked around and saw a monstera plant, like the ones we put in terra cotta pots in trendy cafes, but this one — in its original form — was growing so tall I had to crane my neck.

We sat in the shade and our host spoke about “coyotes,” people who buy whole lots of coffee at low prices and resell them at a marked-up price. The growers accept the rotten deal because they need cash to pay the pickers. The hard part, she said, is finding a buyer de confianza. Someone they can trust.

In this community, I saw coffee as a local, seasonal agricultural product. Sunday was their tianguis day, sort of like the farmers’ market, when everyone sets up tables on the main road near the church and sets out whatever they have to sell: onions, freshly baked bread, chicharrón, tamales. Small plastic bags of green, unroasted coffee.

Before visiting, I thought a “producer” was just a fancy term for a coffee farmer. But no: These are the people who coordinate the labor that goes into producing coffee beans. They tend the soil and plants, and pick and depulp and dry and hull and sell and, in some cases, export. In the industry, we refer to some coffee farmers as “smallholders.” What does that mean? Is the person small, or the thing they’re holding? What are they holding?

In places where coffee doesn’t grow, “origin” is mythical. But in Oaxaca, even in the city, you’re never far from it. “Origin” is the café owner’s pueblo. It’s where the barista’s grandparents live, where they grew up helping out in el campo, getting up at 5 a.m. and planting corn and beans and coffee. Lots of people know someone who has picked coffee, even on Christmas and Three Kings Day. They don’t say “in origin.” They say “en las comunidades” — in communities… that grow coffee.

Even saying “specialty coffee” in Spanish, with the people who actually grow it, seems silly. It feels like bringing the language of luxury into a landscape of labor.

At one point my friend asked me if it was anything like what I imagined. I said I hadn’t even bothered imagining what it would be like, because I had no clue. Now those words mean something else. I put names and faces and smells and tastes to the jargon.

In about eight months, someone halfway across the world will drink a pour-over made with coffee beans from the Sierra Sur de Oaxaca. And the person who grew those beans will wake up, drink café de olla made with the ones that floated — the cast-offs — and tend the plants that will produce next year’s harvest.

En el origen

Lo que aprendí al visitar a productores de café en Oaxaca

En el café de especialidad hablamos de “origen” como otras industrias hablan de terroir — como algo romántico, distante y comercializable.

El café se procesa “en origen”. Hacemos “viajes a origen”. Describimos el sabor según el origen: los cafés etíopes son afrutados y florales; los cafés mexicanos, achocolatados y con notas a nuez; los colombianos van del caramelo a los cítricos.

Recientemente tuve la oportunidad de “ir a origen” en Oaxaca durante la temporada de cosecha con una amiga, profesional local del café. En dos días, todos los términos de manual que había escuchado a lo largo de mis siete años aprendiendo sobre café de especialidad se volvieron tangibles — y empezaron a tener cada vez menos sentido.

En la Sierra Sur, a unas cuatro horas al sur de la capital, nadie dijo la palabra “origen”. De hecho, el origen del café en su comunidad solo se conserva a medias en la historia oral. Han trabajado con plantas de café toda su vida. También sus padres. También sus abuelos. En algún momento — nadie sabe con certeza cuándo — personas de fuera trajeron la planta para cultivarla y exportarla.

Caminando por la calle principal del pueblo, mi amiga señaló hacia arriba y dijo: “Mira”. Miré alrededor y vi un letrero pintado a mano en zapoteco, la lengua indígena, y un árbol alto con flores blancas. Dije: “¿Qué? ¿Las flores? Están bonitas”. Ella respondió: “No, detrás”. Finalmente las vi: cerezas de café rojo rubí brillando entre el follaje verde oscuro.

Nuestra anfitriona local dio un giro brusco a la izquierda. Cruzando la banqueta, nos llevó fuera de la carretera de concreto y hacia el monte. Caminábamos por lo que la industria llamaría un “microlote”, pero aquí la comunidad lo llama “parcela”. Vi que no siembran hileras e hileras de cafetos; cultivan parcelas con café, maíz, mangos y otros cultivos, tierras donde también viven dos o tres generaciones de una misma familia.

A medida que seguíamos el sendero que iba apareciendo, la vegetación se hacía más densa. Vi ramas llenas de cerezas de café en distintas etapas de maduración. Saludamos a dos mujeres que estaban piscando en canastas de mimbre sujetas a sus cuerpos. Era la segunda vuelta, su segundo recorrido por los cafetos dispersos para recoger las cerezas maduras. Habría dos o tres vueltas más antes de terminar la temporada de cosecha.

En un patio de concreto donde el café se secaba al sol, junto a la despulpadora, vi cubetas de plástico repletas de cerezas de café, listas para vaciarse en tanques de agua. Si una cereza flotaba, indicaba un defecto y se separaba del resto de la cosecha. Miré alrededor y vi una planta de monstera, como las que ponemos en macetas de terracota en cafeterías de moda, pero esta — en su forma original — crecía tan alta que tuve que alzar la vista para verla completa.

Nos sentamos a la sombra y nuestra anfitriona habló de los “coyotes”, personas que compran lotes enteros de café a precios bajos y los revenden a un precio más alto. Los productores aceptan el mal trato porque necesitan efectivo para pagar a los pizcadores. Lo difícil, dijo, es encontrar un comprador de confianza. Alguien en quien puedan confiar.

En esta comunidad, vi el café como un producto agrícola local y de temporada. El domingo era día de tianguis, algo así como el mercado local, cuando todos ponen mesas en la calle principal cerca de la iglesia y ofrecen lo que tienen para vender: cebollas, pan recién horneado, chicharrón, tamales. Pequeñas bolsas de plástico con café verde, sin tostar.

Antes de visitar, pensaba que “productor” era solo una forma elegante de decir caficultor. Pero no: son las personas que coordinan el trabajo que implica producir café. Cuidan la tierra y las plantas, y cosechan y despulpan y secan y trillan y venden y, en algunos casos, exportan. En la industria, nos referimos a algunos caficultores como “pequeños productores”. ¿Qué significa eso? ¿Qué tan pequeños son?

En los lugares donde no crece el café, el “origen” es algo mítico. Pero en Oaxaca, incluso en la ciudad, nunca estás lejos de él. El “origen” es el pueblo del dueño de la cafetería. Es donde viven los abuelos del barista, donde crecieron ayudando en el campo, levantándose a las cinco de la mañana para sembrar maíz, frijol y café. Mucha gente conoce a alguien que ha pizcado café, incluso en Navidad y el Día de Reyes. No dicen “en origen”. Dicen “en las comunidades” — en comunidades… que cultivan café.

Incluso decir “café de especialidad” en español, con las personas que realmente lo cultivan, suena absurdo. Se siente como llevar el lenguaje del lujo a un paisaje de trabajo.

En algún momento mi amiga me preguntó si era como lo había imaginado. Le dije que ni siquiera me había molestado en imaginarlo, porque no tenía idea de cómo sería. Ahora esas palabras significan otra cosa. Les puse nombres y rostros y olores y sabores a la jerga.

En unos ocho meses, alguien al otro lado del mundo preparará un pour-over con café de la Sierra Sur de Oaxaca. Y la persona que cultivó esos granos se despertará, beberá café de olla hecho con los que flotaron — los descartados — y cuidará las plantas que darán la cosecha del próximo año.

Later, a café opened down the street from my high school. My sister — a senior with a driver’s license — would leave school during breaks and bring back mocha lattes for us. One day, when she delivered my cup (I was a freshman without such privileges), a classmate said, “Wow. Your sister must really love you.”

Eventually I graduated to black coffee, poured from the pot my parents brewed each morning and transferred into travel mugs as we rushed out the door.

Coffee, like food or wine, is rarely just about the drink itself. It is a pretext for gathering. After a small ritual of preparation, it sustains conversation. It is a shared affection across the world, among people who might otherwise have nothing in common.

The more I’ve learned about coffee — its harvest, its processing, its preparation — the more fascinated I’ve become. Like wine, it carries geography, labor, and history in every cup.

Cafés are places to catch up, to work, to linger. Historically, they were sites of philosophical debate and political exchange. Coffee helped monks stay awake through the night in prayer. It has always fueled something larger than itself.

For me, the real magic began on the other side of the counter.

My first barista job started with an offhand comment that the café on my college campus was hiring. I thought it might be fun. By luck, I landed at The Meantime, a student-run nonprofit. I knew almost nothing about how coffee moved from plant to cup, but they trained me from the ground up. We served specialty coffee sourced from a local roaster. I got my start with some of the best without even realizing it.

I loved the tactile work and the break from my laptop. I loved our customers, nearly all of them regulars. The athletes, the Greek life students, the professors — we’d start making their drinks as soon as we saw them cross the quad. Even when I didn’t know their names, I knew them as “oat milk latte.” I loved how something as small as a cup of coffee could offer such simple joy.

I sought coffee again in Oaxaca.

I first arrived in September 2022, just after graduating college, for a work-trade arrangement at a bed-and-breakfast. I would help with odd jobs in exchange for a place to live.

With extra time on my hands, and missing the rhythm of café work, I began visiting local shops. I’d buy a coffee and then make a proposal: I’m a barista and fluent in Spanish. I’ll work part-time in exchange for food and coffee. A few said no. One said yes.

Instantly, I had a friend group of coworkers my age in a foreign country. During slow hours, we talked about our lives, our governments, our holidays, our relationships.

In a few weeks, I’ll host a group of travelers in Oaxaca for a coffee and culture tour. We’ll use this beverage — something so familiar, so often taken for granted — as a lens to explore economics, social justice, Indigenous sovereignty, and climate change. Above all, I want to make visible the immense labor behind every cup, from seed to harvest to export to brew.

Coffee has always meant being with someone. Now, it also means understanding who made that gathering possible.

Christmas doesn’t really end on Dec. 25 in Mexico. On Jan. 6, Día de Reyes — Three Kings’ Day — families gather to eat rosca de reyes, a large, ring-shaped bread topped with dried fruit. This is also the big gift-giving day for kids. After all, according to the story, it was the Wise Men who brought presents to baby Jesus, not Santa.

In the days leading up to Día de Reyes, every bakery in Oaxaca was stacked with roscas. In the supermarket checkout lines, nearly everyone was carrying one, sometimes two, of the oversized boxes.

The rosca comes with a twist. Baked inside are several small plastic babies. They represent the baby Jesus in hiding, an echo of the biblical story in which he is concealed to protect him from King Herod’s order to kill newborn boys. When the bread is cut, whoever finds a baby in their slice takes on a responsibility.

Amado Bolaños, administrator of the Casa Colonial in Oaxaca, explained it to me. In Mexico, he said, the tradition is to hide the baby in the bread. Depending on the size of the rosca, there are usually several of them. Finding one isn’t bad luck.

“The idea is to see who has the blessing to find the baby,” he said. “The baby represents Jesus. Whoever gets it becomes the padrino of the last Christmas celebration, Candelaria.”

Día de la Candelaria falls on Feb. 2, forty days after Christmas. On that day, families take the baby Jesus from their Nativity scenes, dress him, and bring him to church to be blessed, reenacting Mary’s presentation of Jesus at the temple. It’s also the moment when the Christmas season officially ends.

The padrinos — the people who found the babies in the rosca — are responsible for feeding everyone. They provide tamales and atole, and sometimes even a piñata. “With that,” Amado said, “the Christmas celebrations end.”

Feb. 2 also aligns closely with pre-Hispanic celebrations tied to the agricultural calendar and the birth of the sun. In Aztec tradition, tamales were offered to deities associated with rain, water, and fertility—Tláloc, Chalchiuhtlicue, and Quetzalcóatl—as the planting season approached. Over time, those rituals fused with Catholic observances, leaving tamales at the center of both.

When I found the baby in my slice last month, the compañero standing next to me smiled and said, “Es una bendición.” A blessing — because I would be the one making people happy with tamales.

I didn’t actually make it to any parties on Candelaria. Spring allergies walloped me, and I don’t think the group I shared the rosca with had a gathering anyway. Still, the tamales found me. The next day, my sweet neighbor brought over three of the small cornhusk bundles she had made with her dad.

I’m not asking out of curiosity. I’m asking for sanity’s sake. Because if we didn’t sniff a pink DVD box circa 2007, where the hell did I get that from?

“I sure do,” my sister said.

Thank God.

This is what my sister and I do. We cross-examine memories. It’s different than reminiscing. It’s: “This is how I remember it. How do you remember it?”

(I ask her “Do you remember?” more than she asks me, she reminded me recently. It’s just that she’s three years older and has a mind like a steel trap. My memory leaves gaps, or it fills in the gaps with dreams instead of reality, and I need to know what’s true and what’s not.)

What triggers these memories? Anything. Homesickness. Photos. Food.

Me: Remember how Dad would make baked spaghetti and Mom would think it was yucky?

My sister: Oh gosh. Barely?

Or another time:

Me: Do you remember when Dad would make us muffins, but by muffins he meant one flat sheet of muff?

My sister: YES. He said it was easier than a muffin tin.

My sister and I live a couple countries and several time zones apart. We don’t really keep up with each other’s day-to-day lives. But I know I can text her — “Do you remember?” — out of the blue, and she will call her memory to the witness stand with me.

Me: Do you remember how we had Guitar Hero, but not normal Guitar Hero, it was Beatles Guitar Hero?

My sister: Vividly.

At Christmas, I walked past my mom and uncle talking in the kitchen. They were saying names and places I didn’t know, and something about a pony. I started to ask questions to give me context. They kind of brushed me off. I wasn’t offended; they were deep in the middle of cross-examining memories.

It’s like an inside joke that excludes anyone who wasn’t there. You can’t weigh in if you didn’t live it.

I don’t even remember what Strawberry Shortcake is about. She was not a central character in our childhood media consumption. But I remember a cartoon girl wearing a bonnet sheathed in the plastic DVD cover. I remember pressing my nose to the box and inhaling. And I remember home.

This week I visited the Blanco family pottery workshop in Santa María Atzompa, about five miles outside the city of Oaxaca.

Ana, part of the third generation of potters, demonstrated how they make angelitos — little angels — out of black clay. Just as she was beginning to sculpt, Ana’s sister Lucía came in with her two-year-old son and their brother, Jaime.

They showed us brittle chunks of barro — clay — straight from the mines, and the water tanks where they soak and strain them to clean away the stones and twigs. The red clay stays red when it’s cocido — cooked, or fired; the black clay turns beige.

I interpreted their Spanish into English for another visitor, an artist from Colorado who had visited the workshop 12 and 20 years ago. We were in luck that morning: They were just about to unload the kiln, or horno.

Jaime went to the back corner of the patio to the horno, made of bricks stacked in a circle, with a pit below for firewood. The potters seal it by laying rebar on top of the walls of the horno and placing dozens of comales on top. (A comal is a shallow clay dish, rounded like a hubcap, used for cooking tortillas, memelas, tlayudas, empanadas, and quesadillas over a fire.)

As Jaime removed the comales, the pottery began to peek through: vases covered in flowers, the Virgin of Soledad (Oaxaca’s patron saint), and an almost life-sized muñeca, or doll woman.

The family tradition began with their grandmother, Teodora Blanco, in the 1940s. At that time, the village pottery was almost entirely utilitarian. And money practically didn’t exist: In a system called trueque, people would trade tomatoes and beans for, say, a green earthenware pot — the style typical of Atzompa.

One day, some foreign visitors asked Teodora to make them out of clay, Jaime told us. That kick-started Teodora’s imagination, and she began making large monas or muñecas. After she made the clay extranjeras, one holding a camera, she began sculpting figures that represent village life — like women carrying pots and chickens to the market. Her pieces became more imaginative, depicting mermaids and animals playing instruments, and they caught the attention of U.S. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, who collected them.

Teodora passed her style on to her children, including Irma García Blanco, and each added their own touch. Irma created small clay flowers and attached them to her pots with rigid wires, a technique called pastillaje which she passed on to her son and six daughters — among them Ana, Lucía, and Jaime.

Irma’s children speak about their mother’s encouragement from an early age. When they would stick random bits of clay onto Irma’s nearly complete pieces, she wouldn’t scold them. She’d say “¡Qué bonito!” and quietly fix them that night. She would cocinar, or fire, all of the pieces created by their tiny hands and save them, so they could see their progress over time.

I had the privilege of meeting Irma during Día de Muertos in 2022 when she gave a pottery sculpting demo to our tour group. I bought a small skull, a calavera, with their distinctive flowers made by Lucía.

Around the same time next year, Irma died. And I returned to the workshop with my sister, my cousin, and their partners. My mother also makes pottery, and our home town’s loam soil lends itself to the tradition in North Carolina.

By chance, it was Lucía who received us. She gathered clay and a water basin to give us a demo, and when my cousin’s questions got increasingly technical, she took us deeper into the workshop, to the courtyard with their horno. I was interpreting.

The current of her words swept me up, entering my ears in Spanish and leaving my mouth in English. Normally when I interpret, the other person says a few sentences in Spanish, pauses, and I say them in English. But Lucia didn’t pause.

Lucía spoke about her mother, how she taught her children the craft of ceramics but let them discover the art of it for themselves, how each piece carries the unique mark of the person who made it. She told us how, if a potter is in a bad mood while working with clay, the figure will turn out with an angry expression.

We were speaking at the same time, my speech lagging a few seconds behind hers. It was the first time I had done a simultaneous interpretation, and it was an odd sensation. Even though I was listening and translating and speaking all at once, I heard myself the same way I heard her — as the audience.

But we were connected by more than words. We shared an appreciation for clay, and we shared our grief. That Muertos was the first they would be honoring Irma, and for me it was the two-year anniversary of losing my friend.

Lucía and I looked each other in the eyes, mine pooling with tears. We hugged. Wind ruffled the treetops. At that moment families were taking food and drink to the graveyards, to have a party with their loved ones who came back to earth. When one cycle closes, another opens.

Lucía has two kids, and a niece. This week I saw her give her son a snack while sitting among freshly sculpted mermaids and virgins drying in the back patio. She’s already giving him clay to play with, too — transmitting the family craft to a fourth generation.

Visitando un taller de cerámica de una familia oaxaqueña

Interpretando el español con los nietos de Teodora Blanco en Atzompa

Esta semana visité el taller de cerámica de la familia Blanco en Santa María Atzompa, a unas cinco millas de la ciudad de Oaxaca.

Ana, parte de la tercera generación de alfareros, nos mostró cómo hacen angelitos con barro negro. Justo cuando comenzaba a esculpir, la hermana de Ana, Lucía, entró con su hijo de dos años y su hermano Jaime.

Nos enseñaron trozos quebradizos de barro recién sacados de las minas, y los tanques de agua donde los remojan y filtran para quitar piedras y ramitas. El barro rojo se mantiene rojo cuando se cocido; el barro negro se vuelve beige.

Interpreté su español al inglés para otro visitante, un artista de Colorado que había visitado el taller hace 12 y 20 años. Tuvimos suerte esa mañana: estaban a punto de descargar el horno.

Jaime se dirigió a la esquina trasera del patio, al horno, hecho de ladrillos apilados en círculo, con un hueco debajo para la leña. Los alfareros lo sellan colocando varillas de hierro encima de las paredes del horno y colocando decenas de comales encima. (Un comal es un plato de barro poco profundo, redondeado como una tapa de rueda, que se utiliza para cocinar tortillas, memelas, tlayudas, empanadas y quesadillas sobre el fuego.)

Mientras Jaime retiraba los comales, la cerámica comenzó a asomar: jarrones cubiertos de flores, la Virgen de Soledad (la patrona de Oaxaca) y una muñeca casi de tamaño real.

La tradición familiar comenzó con su abuela, Teodora Blanco, en la década de 1940. En esa época, la cerámica del pueblo era casi completamente utilitaria. Y el dinero prácticamente no existía: en un sistema llamado trueque, la gente intercambiaba, por ejemplo, tomates y frijoles por una olla de barro verde —el estilo típico de Atzompa.

Un día, algunos visitantes extranjeros le pidieron a Teodora que les hiciera figuras de barro, nos contó Jaime. Eso despertó la imaginación de Teodora, y comenzó a hacer grandes monas o muñecas. Después de hacer las extranjeras de barro, una sosteniendo una cámara, empezó a esculpir figuras que representaban la vida del pueblo —como mujeres llevando ollas y pollos al mercado. Sus piezas se volvieron más imaginativas, representando sirenas y animales tocando instrumentos, y llamaron la atención del vicepresidente de Estados Unidos, Nelson Rockefeller, quien las coleccionaba.

Teodora transmitió su estilo a sus hijos, incluyendo a Irma García Blanco, y cada uno agregó su propio toque. Irma creó pequeñas flores de barro y las adhería a sus piezas con alambres rígidos, una técnica llamada pastillaje, que luego enseñó a su hijo y a sus seis hijas —entre ellos Ana, Lucía y Jaime.

Los hijos de Irma hablan del aliento que les dio su madre desde pequeños. Cuando pegaban pedacitos de barro al azar sobre las piezas casi terminadas de Irma, ella no los regañaba. Decía: “¡Qué bonito!” y las corregía en silencio esa misma noche. Cocinaba todas las piezas creadas por sus pequeñas manos y las guardaba, para que pudieran ver su progreso con el tiempo.

Tuve el privilegio de conocer a Irma durante el Día de Muertos en 2022, cuando dio una demostración de escultura en cerámica a nuestro grupo de viaje. Compré un pequeño cráneo, una calavera, con las flores distintivas hechas por Lucía.

Alrededor del mismo tiempo, al año siguiente, Irma murió. Y regresé al taller con mi hermana, mi prima y sus parejas. Mi madre también hace cerámica, y el suelo arcilloso de nuestra ciudad natal en Carolina del Norte se presta a esta tradición.

Por casualidad, fue Lucía quien nos recibió. Reunió barro y un recipiente con agua para darnos una demostración, y cuando las preguntas de mi prima se volvieron cada vez más técnicas, nos llevó más adentro del taller, al patio con su horno. Yo estaba interpretando.

La corriente de sus palabras me arrastraba, entrando a mis oídos en español y saliendo por mi boca en inglés. Normalmente, cuando interpreto, la otra persona dice unas pocas frases en español, hace una pausa, y yo las digo en inglés. Pero Lucía no hacía pausas.

Lucía habló sobre su madre, cómo les enseñó a sus hijos el oficio de la cerámica pero los dejó descubrir el arte por sí mismos, y cómo cada pieza lleva la marca única de quien la creó. Nos contó que, si un alfarero está de mal humor mientras trabaja el barro, la figura saldrá con expresión de enojo.

Hablábamos al mismo tiempo, mi discurso retrasado unos segundos respecto al suyo. Era la primera vez que hacía interpretación simultánea, y fue una sensación extraña. Aunque escuchaba, traducía y hablaba todo a la vez, me oía a mí misma de la misma manera que la escuchaba a ella: como si fuera la audiencia.

Pero estábamos conectadas por algo más que palabras. Compartíamos una apreciación por el barro, y compartíamos nuestro duelo. Ese Muertos sería el primero en el que honrarían a Irma, y para mí era el segundo aniversario de la pérdida de mi amiga.

Lucía y yo nos miramos a los ojos, los míos llenos de lágrimas. Nos abrazamos. El viento agitaba las copas de los árboles. En ese momento, las familias llevaban comida y bebida a los cementerios, para tener una fiesta con sus seres queridos que regresaban a la tierra. Cuando un ciclo cierra, otro abre.

Lucía tiene dos hijos y una sobrina. Esta semana la vi darle una botana a su hijo mientras estaban sentados entre sirenas y vírgenes recién esculpidas, secándose en el patio trasero. Ya le está dando barro para jugar también —transmitiendo la tradición familiar a una cuarta generación.

There are actually a couple other coffee-growing projects in Spain, but in the south. This one, Finca Castellvilar, is close to the border with France.

It was while I was planning a trip to Spain that I learned about the finca. I said “I gotta see this,” and I cold-emailed the address I found on their website.

“Hola,” I wrote. I’m Elizabeth. “I’m a journalist, originally from North Carolina, I’m fluent in Spanish, and I began in the world of coffee as a barista seven years ago. I want to learn more about coffee farming and your project.”

I didn’t hear back for a couple months, and I pretty much forgot about it. Then, the afternoon I landed in Santiago de Compostela, I connected to the airport Wifi and saw a message from Joan. Yes, we can talk more about your visit.

I changed my plans. I went to Barcelona and took the local train a little over an hour to the town of Torrelló. Joan and Eva welcomed me with open arms.

I saw coffee plants for the first time in my life and learned how to distinguish a Gesha from other varieties. I watched in awe as they watered 5,000 saplings by hand with two plastic watering cans. I even tasted a coffee cherry — of course saving the precious seed, which will eventually get roasted and evaluated by a Q Grader (kind of like the sommelier of coffee).

We communicated in Castellano, which later struck me as amusing, because for all of us it’s a second language. At home, they speak Catalan.

Joan and Eva showed me the local Catalan news coverage of their project, as well as a paragraph about them in The Economist. In fact, The Times of London was working on a piece about them at that time. I couldn’t help feeling like I was getting scooped. There had been a few mentions of Castellvilar in U.S. media, but I knew I could write more, and introduce their project to a larger audience.

So, after consulting a former colleague with freelance experience, I started pitching. First I reached out to more traditional international media. When I didn’t hear back, I set my sights on coffee news outlets — specifically a source I enjoy called Sprudge. I wanted my piece to be published on their Special Projects Desk, sponsored by La Marzocco.

I did some “pre-reporting” on who to pitch to and how, and a couple weeks later I got a “Yes.” All of that was in September 2025. I filed the piece in early October, and it got published in January 2026.

I broke away from local daily newspapers last August, and this is my first freelance article since then. Seeing my byline again gave me a rush — even more so because this was a passion piece.

So, here is a link to the article, and some additional photos. I hope you enjoy!