Escena del café Mexicano (Mexican Cafe Scene)

We have been enjoying visiting Mexico for many years, experiencing the food, tequila and now the coffee.

Specialty coffee has been making a slow move into parts of Mexico over the last couple of years. In Mexico City most things are available because it’s a world city, but in other parts of Mexico they are unhurried in accepting them. Tourist areas around Mexico City see many American travelers so the coffee is often mostly brewed to suit their drinking habits. It has always been hard to find a good milk-based espresso because of the big, brewed coffee culture. The other problem with milk beverages is they often use long-life dairy products, which don’t taste that great and steam poorly. Good cafe service is growing but you still need to follow your nose and search for the better cafes.

Mexico is a big producer of coffee so there is no shortage of high-quality beans. It is the eighth largest coffee producer in the world. We have been working over the years with a company called Descamex which produces large quantities of water processed decaffeinated coffee. Their coffee is amazing and sought after all over the world for the quality and production range. Descamex was the first decaffeination processing plant in Latin America and has taken advantage of local connections in the supply chain of amazing Mexican-grown coffees.

Mexico started growing coffee in the 1800’s in Veracruz, which is still famous for the fruity flavour notes of the beans. Most of Mexico’s finest coffee is grown at Chiapas by the indigenous Mexicans and much of it is organic, making the beans sought after and Mexico as one of the largest growers of organic coffee. The majority of Mexican coffees are washed coffees and Arabic varietals make up for most of the production.

We recently had the pleasure of spending time in Guadalajara, which is the third largest city in Mexico with a population of 1.4 million people. The city is full of young people as it has many of Mexico’s best universities. Guadalajara is full of art and culture and the downtown area has many beautiful old buildings surrounding the Guadalajara cathedral. The city also has some amazing restaurants and cafes as the young, wealthy inhabitants seek high quality hospitality service. We were excited to get a booking at Bruna, one of the world’s Best 50 Restaurants. The food was incredible, showcasing the best of Mexican home cooking, highlighting the food of many of the states of Mexico. The restaurant also prizes themselves on their beverage service, the cocktails were themes and made at your table. The coffee was also well presented and was very good for a fine dining restaurant which can often forget this part of service.

The cafe scene, like most big cities was a hit and miss, but we did discover a roasting business called The Coffee Legacy which was a roastery cafe. The coffee service was excellent, and the cafe food was exceptional. The roastery was like a museum at the back and had some antique roasters and lever espresso machines. The overall setup was as good as I have seen in my global travels and is setting a high benchmark for Mexico. The young staff were vibrant, had excellent customer service skills and spoke English well. We were excited to find this coffee business and it put the icing on the cake for our visit to Guadalajara.

Sean Edwards,
Director of Cafe Culture International