About San Cristobal
San Cristobal Coffee Importers was founded to create a more equitable and effective bottom-up model for connecting smallholder producers with the international market. Our work began in Mexico in the early 1990s and remains rooted there today through our sister organizations, Cafés Sustentables de México and Grupo Terruño Nayarita.
We work directly with producing organizations to improve quality, increase traceability, and ensure that more value returns to the farm. This model enables farmers to invest in their communities, protect their forests, and achieve long-term sustainable production.
We and the roasters we work with
are near the pinnacle of the supply chain and are in a good position to drastically improve the lives of farmers. We serve as a transparent conduit between roasters and growers so they may both develop and flourish.
Our strong relationships
with other origin brokers and exporters allow us to supply our customers with any coffee they need, when they need it; from one bag to multiple containers.
The People
Our Team
US Team
Jim Kosalos
President
President of San Cristobal Coffee Importers and majority partner in Cafés Sustentables de México, is a geophysicist from Wisconsin who has been using his scientific background to help Mexican coffee producers. He was a long time member of the SCAA’s Technical Standards Committee where he was involved in the initial evaluation of Q® grading standards; he became a Q® Instructor and used this to bring international coffee grading standards to Nayarit’s coffee producers.
Devorah Zeitlin
Vice President
Vice President of San Cristobal Coffee Importers, is a native of Brooklyn who received a degree in public health from Tulane University in Louisiana. Her Peace Corps assignment took her to Nepal where she worked with farmers under the auspices of the Nepali Department of Agriculture. She worked in Washington, DC, to help develop Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hazardous waste regulations before moving to Seattle in the early 1990s.
Kenny Davis
General Manager
General Manager of San Cristobal Coffee Importers, is a native to the Pacific Northwest. His role at San Cristobal encompasses quality control, sales, logistics, and millenial translator. He worked for SC immediately after graduating from Oregon State University in 2012, but took leave from 2014 to 2017 to explore a career in Environmental Consulting. The coffee industry left it's mark and he rejoined the team at the start of 2018.
Jacob Frankel
Trader
Specialty Trader at San Cristobal Coffee Importers, Jacob is originally from California. He studied International Relations and Political Science at Carleton College and has spent considerable time in Latin America. His experience includes researching quinoa production in the Andes Mountains in Peru. And before joining us in Seattle, he spent a year at the origin in Nayarit, Mexico, working with our coffee quality management partner Cafés Sustentables de México.
Get in Touch
Have questions about our coffees? We'd love to hear from you.
Mexico Team
Lic. Marcela Ladrón de Guevara Salazar
General Manager
Lic. Marcela Ladrón de Guevara Salazar is the General Manager of Cafés Sustentables de México in Tepic. A practicing attorney, she brings legal expertise to supporting the region's coffee producers. She also teaches Mexican history and, in her spare time, plays the violin.
L.C. Benjamín Macías Parra
Head Accountant
Benjamín Macías is the accountant at Cafés Sustentables de México, where he has been a trusted member of the CAFESUMEX family for many years.
Carlos Bustamante
Head of Operations
Carlos Bustamante is Head of Harvest Operations and Quality Control at Cafés Sustentables de México in Tepic. Originally from Veracruz, he grew up working in coffee and brings deep, practical experience to the organization. He oversees harvest and post-harvest operations and personally cups every microlot exported by Grupo Terruño Nayarita.
Lic. Santos Villa Diaz
QC Systems Manager
Lic. Santos Villa Díaz is an attorney with over 20 years of experience at Cafés Sustentables de México in Tepic. He manages FincaLab cherry intake during the harvest and oversees the QC cupping database.
Ing. Edgar Fredy Flores Lucas
Agronomist
Fredy Flores Lucas is an agronomist and member of Grupo Terruño Nayarita. He advises hundreds of coffee producers across the region on best practices throughout the growing cycle. A producer himself from the CUERNO Society in in the town Presidio de los Reyes, Nayarit, his knowledge is firsthand. During harvest season, he works his own organic coffee farm. He is also a fluent speaker of Cora, one of Nayarit's indigenous languages.
L.C. Karen L Miramontes
Assistant Accountant
Karen L. Miramontes is the Assistant Accountant at Cafés Sustentables de México, where she supports all financial operations. She also serves as the company’s internal organic auditor. Outside the office, she runs her own small business producing custom piñatas and traditional caramel candies.
Daniel Bustamante
Inventory & Logistics Manager
Daniel oversees inventory and operations across Cafés Sustentables de México’s processing network. He coordinates teams at the wet mills, drying patios, and dry mill to ensure coffee moves efficiently through each stage of production.
Marisol López
Traceability Coordinator
Marisol manages traceability across all Mexico operations, overseeing wet mill records and lot-level export data. She supports organic audits and prepares data for TrackYourCoffee.com, ensuring transparency from origin to cup.
Don Toño
Dry Mill Operator
Don Toño operates the El Duende Dry Mill in Compostela, Nayarit, a role he has held for over 50 years, long before Cafés Sustentables de México existed. It’s safe to say that without him, Nayarit coffees wouldn’t have the quality reputation they do today.
Brayan Adán Gutiérrez
FincaLab Software Engineer
Brayan is one of the software engineers at Cafés Sustentables, where he helps build the FincaLab system that powers our coffee traceability and quality management network in Mexico. He is also a skilled electrician, and in his free time, an avid mountain biker.
Yareli Valdivia
FincaLab Software Engineer
Yareli is also a FincaLab software engineer working to build Cafés Sustentables de México's traceability and quality management system. Outside of work, she is a champion sprinter representing Nayarit. She holds a Nayarit state record in the 200m!