Tasting Notes:
Chocolate Truffle
Dried Apricot
Hazelnut Cream
Producer: 150+ women-owned smallholder farms
Region: Bella Vista, Chiapas
Processing: Washed
Variety: Caturra, Bourbon, Catimor
Altitude: 1500-1700m
Description: Just across the border from Guatemala, Chiapas shares a lot of characteristics with coffees from the famous region of Huehuetenango, Guate. Crisp, articulate acidity, rich body, and a lasting sweetness, making these some of the most sought after lots in Mexico. This washed lot comes to us via Mayan Harvest, a Bella Vista-based exporter founded and operated by Rosalba Cifuentes. After a traumatic and unstable childhood in Chiapas, Rosalba emigrated to California at 17. She always dreamt of starting her own business that could connect her back to hometown, and she invested almost 2 decades of savings into exporting her first container of coffee from Bella Vista. Selling the first container came with its difficulties - she quickly realized that Chiapas had a long way to go in building its name recognition on the global scene. Undeterred, she imported a second container the following year. At a cupping in Oakland, the samples from Bella Vista blew away one of the buyers at Royal Coffee (one of the largest specialty importers in the US) who bought the whole lot. Each subsequent harvest, Rosalba has grown Bella Vista and Mayan Harvest’s reputation on the global stage, putting her hometown on the speicalty coffee map.

This lot comes from a group of women producers that Rosalba has been working with over the years. In Rosalba’s own words: “unfortunately, in the area… machismo predominates, so the producers are isolated… Taking this as a starting point, we want to try to improve the image of the producers by creating this group in order to promote their work”. We’re absolutely delighted with this coffee – it has a little bit for everyone. Starting with the deep richness of chocolate truffle, the hazelnutty creaminess, all the way to the dense sweetness of dried stone fruit. Coffee like this doesn’t just happen overnight.