María Nohemy Rodríguez

My husband and I have been growing coffee since the 1980s and we are third-generation farmers, so believe me, I've seen more coffee beans in my life than anyone!

We only have 0.7 hectares of land, so it's a very humble business, but we love coffee, we love our plants, and we love what we do. Plus, we live where we work, so we only have to leave the house to be in the middle of our little coffee farm.

Luckily, there's plenty of shade, provided by a variety of fruit trees, such as orange, mandarin, mango, avocado, pineapple, and many more. Besides offering much-needed shade, these same trees also allow us to enjoy a wide variety of fruits throughout the year.

There are many hardships here. Coffee sells for so little that we can barely make a living. Fortunately, three of our seven children survived their perilous journey across the desert to the United States, and now they can send us some money each month. That's what keeps us afloat.

We also try to produce at least one batch of premium coffee each year. We typically get good beans in both the first and last harvests, but not the best. It's midway through the harvest that we get the highest quality, when the cherries are a deep, almost purple, red, and when ripeness, size, and quality are at their most consistent.

These are the batches—small but flavorful—that we're most proud of. And yes, believe me, we also enjoy drinking them, and that's how we end the day, gazing at our plants as the sun sets behind the mountains.