Our great mate Ben connecting us with incredible coffee and community in the highlands of Chiapas.

This is a very exciting new partnership, one in the making for a few years, waiting patiently for the perfect time to present itself. We crossed paths with Ben Whitaker in 2021 where we officially took the reins of The Final Step, an iconic Melbourne coffee venue for over a decade. Ben was moving to Central America to pursue social impact projects and would have to leave his beloved cafe, so he decided it would be safe in the hands of Commonfolk and continue supporting social impact and Ben in his future projects. Commonfolk South Yarra has been going since and over the years contributing funds to The Cup That Counts, now a new project has emerged and we are so excited to be working with Ben again.

Ben has found his new home in the clouds of San Cristobal in Chiapas, Mexico. At an impressive 2,200 MASL San Cristobal sits above the coffee from the surrounding regions of Tenejapa and Chenalhó, who sit at 1600 MASL and 1500 MASL respectively. These communities have produced coffee for a long time, but mostly for the internal market. Antonio Jimenez is looking to change that and is working with Ben to help source directly from hundreds of small holders and collate them ready for export to us for the first time. Antonio has had a tough time making his way through the world of coffee. As a young man he was a great coffee farmer, diligently tending to his farm and seeing amazing yields. However this brought the ire of his neighbours and eventually Antonio and his young family were tormented and attacked before being run off his own land, fleeing to San Cristobal. In order to get his life back on track his family lent him 20 bags of green coffee to sell, the enterprising Antonio managed to roll this into some more money and each year build on how much he was able to purchase from the communities of Tenejapa and Chenalhó. Ben has been roasting coffee sourced by Antonio for a while now in his cafe roastery in San Cris. Now we are ready to become partners as well. After a trip in 2025 Tommy was able to meet with Antonio and Ben, see some producers and cup the coffee that we have right now. This is just the beginning of an amazing story and new coffee partnership with an old friend.