Mayan Coffees

Óscar Martínez, a Guatemalan engineer turned coffee roaster, opened Mayan Coffees behind Valencia's Quart Towers after a self roasted cup in a small Oslo cafe convinced him to change course entirely. He'd been awarded a scholarship to study telecommunications in Russia, spent two years in Moscow, and drifted through Barcelona, Madrid, and Norway before settling on Valencia as, in his words, the best place in the world to live.

Mayan Coffees has spent years working directly with small producers, mostly Guatemalan, roasting the beans it serves rather than buying them in. An aeropress brewed infusion style coffee, closer to the long, mellow cups Martínez picked up in the United States, runs alongside standard espresso, poured in a room decorated with the textiles and craft of his home country.