Bella Vista Mayan Harvest Familia Cifuentes, Mexico

In September 2025, I had the honor of visiting Bella Vista, a remote mountain community in Chiapas, Mexico, where our Mayan Harvest coffees are grown. Our Mayan Harvest Familia Cifuentes coffee is sourced from 12 family lots in Bella Vista, each representing the care, knowledge, and hard work of the people who call this community home.

Getting there took nearly five hours by car from Tapachula, navigating dense fog, winding mountain roads, mudslides, and a route carefully planned around areas affected by cartel activity. When we finally arrived, I was reminded of the small town my dad is from in Nayarit. The warmth, generosity, and hospitality felt unmistakably Mexican.

Angie Ralón, who manages logistics and community relationships in Bella Vista, helped coordinate my visit. I had the honor of staying with Don Froilan Cifuentes and his wife. The Cifuentes family holds a special place in the Mayan Harvest story: Rosalba's family in Bella Vista was one of the reasons she started Mayan Harvest in the first place.

Spending time with the family and seeing their impact on the community left a lasting impression on me. The Cifuentes family has played a pivotal role in helping their neighbors improve coffee quality by sharing knowledge and experience, creating opportunities for more families to succeed. Their pride in their work was evident, as was their happiness that people had traveled so far to learn about and appreciate their coffee.

During my visit, I also met other community members who contribute to Los Toros and the Women's Lot. Through conversations with Don Froilan and his father, I learned about the immense hardships producers have faced over the years. They spoke about the devastation of roya, or coffee leaf rust, and the trauma of the period when cartel activity took over Bella Vista. Men were forced to work blocking the community's entrances, creating tremendous stress and tension. Many producing families left, while those who remained struggled to tend to their farms. By the time I visited, the community had come through that period, but its effects were still deeply felt.

I also gained a greater understanding of the everyday challenges of producing coffee in such a remote place. For many families, one harvest must provide enough income to sustain them throughout the year. Getting coffee from the plots to the main road and eventually to the selling station is an undertaking in itself, especially for families without trucks. Because cars cannot reach many of the areas where coffee grows, mules are essential for transporting the harvest. Much of the coffee is processed on the patios at producers' homes, making each step of the journey a labor of care and perseverance.

These are not challenges unique to the Cifuentes family; they are part of the shared experience of producing coffee in Bella Vista. Yet what struck me most was the community's commitment to one another. I witnessed people invested in the success of their neighbors, sharing what they knew and working to raise the quality of everyone's coffee. I was also welcomed with some of the most delicious, nourishing food I've had in a long time. The generosity I experienced around the table was a beautiful reflection of the spirit of the community itself.

This is our sixth year purchasing coffee from Mayan Harvest, and the first time we've offered a coffee specifically from the Cifuentes family. This year, we were also able to increase our purchasing volume and expand the number of lots we purchased from this beautiful community.

For us, buying this coffee is about so much more than bringing home something delicious. It's about building relationships in which the people who grow our coffee feel that their work is valued, their stories and knowledge are respected, and their coffee reaches people far beyond Bella Vista. It's about coffee contributing to the livelihoods and futures these families are working so hard to build.

In the cup, we taste cherry, vanilla frosting, blueberry, and tangerine. We think this coffee is a shining example of the beauty and diversity Mexican coffees have to offer, and we hope you love it as much as we do.

We’re honored to share their coffee with you.

*If you would like this coffee ground, please specify brew method in comments.