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To Jeronimo Vasquez, the story of Mayan Winds Coffee Emporium is one that centers around love.

Beginning with his parents meeting in Guatemala, followed by his collaborator Juan Loera meeting his wife in Chiapas, Mexico, and then to Vasquez’s own marriage to Alejandra Esparza Marin, the journey of Mayan Winds official opening in 2021 persisted through various twists and turns.

While the business started with its organic coffee, sourced directly from the Indigenous people of Mexico and Guatemala, Mayan Winds offers much more alongside its cappuccinos, macchiatos and traditional Mexican mochas.

“We don’t sell only coffee; we offer an experience,� said Esparza Marin, as the shop's extensive offerings include cocoa powder, cacao nibs, raw honey, salsa macha, pinole and corn cookies all originally from Mexico, as well as Mexican jewelry including earrings and bracelets.

However, when it comes to the coffee specifically, Vasquez says it’s Esparza Marin who is responsible for the final result customers have come to love over the past few years.

“She has experience as a chef in Mexico, she worked as a second,� Vasquez said. “She is very quality-control, very precise, meticulous. Whereas me, I kind of learned coffee on the fly on the side, so I am not as meticulous and create those recipes the way she has. You look at the design, you look at the labels, that’s all her and her creation.�

In order for Esparza Marin to work her magic behind the counter, the coffee beans must first make their journey north from Mexico, specifically Chiapas and Oaxaca. The connection between Vasquez and Loera, the source of Mayan Winds� beans introduction to Flagstaff, began back in 2005 when the two met through a mutual mentor before the first coffee purchase was made in 2010. Initially purchasing 100 1-pound bags at a time, Vasquez would spend the next few months selling the bags through fundraisers during his time working at Killip Elementary School and to various others he knew.

As the roasted beans awaited another order and shipment to Flagstaff, Vasquez said there was a notable deterioration in the quality of the beans. Instead of continuing a practice of bringing in smaller quantities of roasted beans, Vasquez explained he made the leap into purchasing green coffee beans with a plan to roast them locally.

The first pallet of green coffee delivered in December 2019, and sales of the green beans began early in 2020. Though the pandemic interrupted the process in its first few months, Vasquez said the sales led to Mayan Winds Flagstaff’s first commercial space late in 2020 before shifting to its current location in March 2021 just after he was appointed as Coconino County’s District 2 supervisor.

Though the space was initially used to house the green coffee beans while offering somewhat sporadic hours to enjoy a freshly brewed cup, Mayan Winds coffee became regularly available in September 2022, with an official grand opening in November of the same year.

As the business has grown from a few bags of coffee being available more than a decade ago, so too has the mission for Mayan Winds, and the space it occupies. A collaboration among Vasquez’s family, Mayan Winds also serves as a communal space, with a stage installed in January 2024 in order to host speakers and open mic nights. Additionally, the coffee shop encourages those interested to attend its various events such as chess days, workshops for poetry, lessons on creating traditional pine needle baskets and other crafts, Spanish conversation groups and even tastings of some of its popular offerings.

Vasquez credits his mother and father in helping Mayan Winds grow to what it has become today, in part through helping invest early on while offering support for creating a space that embraces their culture's appreciation for community.

“Coming to the shop, it feels very nice because it’s a safe place for me. I come from a rich culture where everybody cares for others. Not with money, but you can come and tell them about problems,� said Marina Vasquez, Vasquez’s mother. “You go and weave under a tree, you make baskets and it’s a circle. People start sharing.�

Vasquez and Esparza Marin have traveled to Chiapas, one of the primary locations where the coffee beans are grown throughout the villages, and met the farmers. Joining with Loera in an effort to buy the coffee directly from the source, Vasquez said the goal has been to cut out the various stages of an exploitative process and create a fair market for farmers to earn a living off their crop. With more money remaining in the hands of those who grow and harvest the crop, Vasquez explained the communities are better positioned to remain together rather than having fathers and husbands immigrate in order to find wages that can be sent back home.

“They started to sell coffee bag by bag,� Esparza Marin said. “We wanted to help support people in Central America, and I think that’s the central point in this business, the goal and the mission. It’s a social business. It’s not just to sell coffee, it’s to sell an experience, feelings and memories that we can share. The people who come here, they feel identified with us in some way.�