MEXICAN COFFEES. 1 55 



and capacity for the production of all the coffee that is 

 required for consumption in the United States, the area 

 adapted to the cultivation of coffee in Mexico being 

 almost illimitable, and bounded only by the extent of 

 land brought under cultivation. Its suitability as a 

 coffee-producing country has been tested by more than 

 fifty years of experience, and that it has not heretofore 

 assumed first place in point of production, exportation, 

 and the rank to which the merit of its product entitles 

 it, is to be attributed to the same causes that have so 

 long retarded its other agricultural and commercial 

 developments. But while coffee is chiefly produced for 

 export only in the States of Vera Cruz, Oaxaca, Micha- 

 coan, Colima, Chiapas, Jalisco and Tabasco, excellent 

 coffee is also grown on the plains of the interior as far 

 north as Sinaloa, as well as in the coast States from 

 Yucatan to Tamaulipas. They are commercially classi- 

 fied as Oaxaca, Cordova, Urupuan, Tepic, Tabasco, Soco- 

 nusco and Caracolillo, varying materially in size, style 

 and quality. 



Oaxaca Is a " Sierra," or mountain coffee, large, bold 

 and blue when new, but bleaching with time. It is one 

 of the best of the Mexican varieties, being regular in 



roast, heavy in body, strong and rich in flavor and aroma. 



* 



Cordova. Grown in the State of Vera Cruz, is 

 usually a large yellow-bean coffee, from which fact it is 

 sometimes termed " Mexican Java." It makes a hand- 

 some roast, yielding a round, full liquor, approaching to 

 that of a fine Maracaibo or medium Java. 



Urupuan Produced in the State of Michacoan is 

 also a mountain grade, rather small in size, greenish- 

 blue in color but somewhat irregular in appearance, not 



