




With its meaty texture and rich delicious bean broth the Ayocote Morado is one of our favorite beans and a regional specialty grown for generations in the fertile soil of the Puebla region. This majestic heirloom bean has roots in Southern Mexico, and is traditionally enjoyed with roasted poblanos and chile-laden moles. Raised among vegetables and fruit trees, Ayocote Morado is born from a red flower that’s also used ornamentally.
As part of our partnership with La Comandanta, we are delighted to offer this rare gem grown using the ancient Milpa technique of growing corn, beans, squash and chilis together. It is rare to find farms growing this way because it requires labor intensive hand harvesting. Each bean is plucked from the plant with love by Cesar, his family and friends. This is the epitome of traditional farming and preserving cultural traditions, resulting in the most delicious and healthy beans you could find.
We partner with family farms committed to nurturing healthy soil—the foundation of truly exceptional beans. Our single origin beans have the farmers name and harvest date right on the package. Non-gmo, glyphosate free and always grown with traditional farming methods the way nature intended.
After much research we've put together the definitive guide to cooking heirloom beans.
Your guide to cooking heirloom beans to perfection—bringing out their unique flavor, texture, and heritage in every pot.
Beans are harvested once a year, typically in the fall. After harvest they are dried, cleaned and processed and finally put into bags and ready for you in the spring. Sort of like wine, last year's harvest is this year's beans! We put the harvest date and farmer on every package so that you can keep track in your pantry but once you try our beans, they won't last long.
Our modern, corporate food system prioritizes efficiency and cost cutting over flavor and nutrient density. To get a bag of beans to your grocery store for just a few dollars they mix together beans from farms all over the globe, keeping them in huge bins and transporting them from broker to wholesaler to distributor to store with identical bags stamped with a best by date that is at least 3 years from harvest. We choose to be radically transparent, even though its much harder and costly, because we think that everyone should know exactly how their food was grown and who grew it. Honoring the people who are doing farming differently is one of our most deeply held values and thousands of happy customers agree.
Regenerative is a fancy way of saying that you grow things the old fashioned way, in harmony with nature and not against it. We only partner with farms that prioritize soil health and use traditional farming methods because we know that better tasting beans come from healthy soil.
The weedkiller glyphosate (aka Roundup) is not used for the production of any of our beans.
The majority of our beans are certified organic however not all small farms can afford the process of certification. All of our beans are glyphosate free and our partner farmers where chosen for their incredible growing practices, prioritizing soil health and people health.
We could spend all day talking about all the reasons to love dried beans:
Canned beans are super convenient but if you batch cook beans and freeze them in the cooking liquid it's nearly as convenient as canned and way more delicious! Check out our guide to freezing beans.
Our farms and facilities do not grow, store, or process nuts, soy, or peanuts, so there is very little risk of cross-contamination. However, if you have a severe sensitivity, please use caution – none of our beans are certified by a third-party as being free from these allergens. Our co-packer does handle products containing milk and eggs, but the machine used to handle our beans does not come into contact with these allergens. In the case of gluten sensitivity, beans are often grown in rotation with wheat and other grains, which is the case with a handful of our farms. However, these crops are not grown in the same field at once and in the rare case that wheat kernels get mixed in, they would be removed during the cleaning process. As always, we recommend rinsing beans in clean water every time, even when they appear clean, and inspecting for small stones.
