I've visited coffee plantations on previous travels to Costa Rica and Jamaica but never previously in Mexico. Mexican coffee, particularly from the Chiapas region, has always held a special place in my heart. When coffee was just a hobby for me, I had an internet friend from Alaska who would go to Chiapas each year and bring back coffee beans from area farmers, which he would then roast in his Alaskan pizza oven setup. He mailed me five pounds of these raw beans. It was some of the best coffee that I've ever tried.
When I roasted professionally, I kept Mexican coffee beans in stock for two reasons. One, I loved the flavor profile. Two, it was the least expensive high-quality arabica coffee that I could find--often less than $2/lb for green in 152 lb bags. I sold two different roasts: a lightly roasted-bean that was marketed as Mexican Altura and an dark-oily bean that was marketed as French Roast (known internally as BBB for badly burn beans).
The coffee plantation that we visited in the San Sabastian area was quite basic. Here, an employee is grinding the coffee beans with a belt-driven grinder.
The owner is selling roasted coffee to us gringo tourists. His family has been growing coffee here for five generations.
As soon as the line died down, I asked him if he could sell me a kilo of green (raw) coffee beans. He nodded and then disappeared for a long time in the back. The price was half the price of roasted--a reasonable deal.
When I went to roast the coffee back home, the preparation was not as clean as what I'm used to. There were small amounts of debris mixed in with the green beans. However, the lightly roasted coffee was delicious.
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