The Mexican coffee is the sum of the national ecosystems. It is as varied as its states, its biomes, its geography. The cups of coffee, at least those categorized as excellent, are a mirror of the richness of its land and the care of its producer, the roaster, the barista.

To delve into the topic of where the best Mexican coffee comes from, we first need to define what a good coffee is. For Jesús Salazar, the Cafeólogo, the best coffee is not the one you like, but the one selected by a group of tasters after analyzing it physically and organoleptically. "It has to be a healthy product, free of defects. It should have moisture parameters between 10 and 12 percent when green. In the cup, it should be clean, with no flavors of damage or defects," says Jesús, who has tirelessly sought out excellent coffees and producers in Chiapas.

A good cup should have sweetness, acidity, good body, flavor, aftertaste, and balance. The acidity should be juicy, with just the right bitterness to give it character. Additionally, for him, it should come from good environmental practices and be sourced from sustainable trade. "It's important to consider where it comes from, what practices it was produced under, and if the person who produced it is receiving fair income for their work," he confirms.

For Carlos Juárez, a barista at Ímpetus in Veracruz, an excellent coffee should be one that is not difficult to drink. "When a coffee is hard to drink, it's because it's very bitter, it dries your tongue, or it has unpleasant flavors. A good coffee should be elegant. Its texture should be very silky. It should be clean, with a bright acidity."

According to the team at Buna, Café Rico, in Mexico City, the best coffee comes from healthy soil and should involve the entire supply cycle in a humane and conscious manner.


If we consider that Mexico is in a region suitable for coffee cultivation, 15 of the 32 states are producers of this grain. Despite ranking ninth in the world in production, in most origins, the activity is carried out for local consumption or on a massive scale, so qualities vary drastically.

Additionally, to determine where the best coffee in Mexico grows, we must not only talk about geographical conditions but also about the biological varieties of coffee. Throughout the national territory, the arabica species – with varieties such as caturra, mundo novo, or bourbon – and robusta, of lesser quality, grow. Each microclimate allows these varieties to develop unique characteristics.

When the combination of humidity, geographical features, and altitude is well managed in the field, coffees from all cardinal points come out fruity, floral, spicy, chocolaty, and caramel-like, providing a breath of fresh air for the mornings, because as the Cafeólogo says, "the third factor is the talent of the coffee grower. When you find a virtuous coffee grower, a virtuous coffee is the resulting consequence."

A parameter that measures where the best coffee in Mexico comes from is the Cup of Excellence competition. In it, Veracruz has won five times, Jalisco once, and Chiapas three times. Therefore, for Carlos Juárez, "the best coffee is from Veracruz because if we talk about 9 years of competition, Veracruz has won more than most."

The winning profiles from Veracruz share similar characteristics: they are coffees with citrus and sweet flavors, mostly coming from the washed process. "Sometimes they have notes of lemon and piloncillo, sometimes floral, orange, and honey, or with nuts, but they are almost always citrus and sweet." At Ímpetus, special scores are important when selecting each product, so their offer includes only coffees scoring above 80 points and up to 89 or 90 points.

We cannot overlook the coffee from Pluma Hidalgo, in Oaxaca, whose lush land in the Sierra Madre del Sur hosts large beans and small to medium-scale producers. Their washed, honey, and natural processes combined with good know-how and altitude result in profiles ranging from fruity to caramelized, also awarded in international competitions.

For Jesús Salazar, finding a generic profile in Chiapas is impossible as this grain is produced in sixty municipalities, of which fifteen (in the Highlands of Chiapas, the Sierra Madre, the Sierra de Mariscal, or the jungle) have offered winning coffees of the Cafeólogo award. He states that one of the coffees he enjoyed the most was from Petrona Pérez, an indigenous tzeltal woman from Tenejapa, Chiapas. This coffee has even been served at the now-closed Noma of René Redzepi, in Norway. "It's a crystalline coffee with a champagne profile. It's floral, with a delicious finish like lychee juice. Not only because of the flavor profile but also because of who produces it, where it's produced, and how it's produced: we are talking about an indigenous tzental woman who doesn't speak Spanish, who has a production system not of a farm, but as a peasant who produces coffee with a great work philosophy," says the Cafeólogo.

For the Buna team, the best coffee can be found throughout the republic and is one that comes from healthy, cared-for, and sustainable soil, where there is an agroforestry system free of agrotoxins, conscious of the environment, and generates wealth for those who cultivate it. There should be harmony between the quality of the grain, the agricultural system, the price, and production costs.

Of course, the land and the producer are vital for obtaining an excellent coffee grain, as demonstrated by producers from Nayarit or Puebla, but it is the roasting and preparation that will complete the experience of the best cup. Jesús beautifully describes it: "the producer writes the notes of a symphony; the musicians, who would be the roasters, interpret those notes and make them sound; the barista equalizes that sound to make it pleasant".

The preparation should create a balance by extracting the flavors from the coffee with water so that it expresses correctly. According to Carlos, "if I know that a method gives me a lot of acidity and my coffee has no acidity, I can use that method to compensate for the lack." And yes, the method depends on the barista's perspective, but for the vast majority, the best is to use paper filters.

The Buna team states that each coffee extraction method achieves a different quality. The only way to determine the ideal method is to play with it, taste it, and decide the story you want to tell in each cup. For Jesús, the best is to intervene as little as possible, as in some drip methods, which express the coffee's characteristics well without very aggressive manipulation.

Mexico has enviable biodiversity and lands that reflect in the cups of excellent coffee. The exuberance of each ecosystem and the know-how of each coffee grower make it difficult to select a single origin; however, Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Veracruz are a true reflection that people and nature are the perfect duo.

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