Meet the Founder & CEO Cifuentes
Some people discover specialty coffee later in life.
For Alisa Cifuentes, it has always been part of who she is.
Born into a family whose roots run deep in the mountains of Bella Vista, Chiapas, Mexico, Alisa is the eldest daughter of renowned specialty coffee exporter Rosalba Cifuentes Tovia, founder of Mayan Harvest Coffee. From an early age, coffee was more than a crop—it was family, community, culture, and a way of creating opportunity. Rosalba grew up in Bella Vista and founded Mayan Harvest to help producers earn better prices through quality, traceability, and direct relationships with specialty roasters around the world.
As her mother built Mayan Harvest into one of the most respected specialty coffee exporters in Mexico, Alisa witnessed every step of the journey. She learned that extraordinary coffee begins long before roasting—with healthy trees, careful harvesting, meticulous processing, and treating producers as partners rather than suppliers. She saw firsthand the countless hours spent traveling between Bella Vista and California, introducing Mexican coffee to specialty roasters one relationship at a time.
Growing up in this environment gave Alisa an education that cannot be found in textbooks. Conversations around the family table centered on harvest quality, fermentation methods, drying techniques, cupping notes, export logistics, and the challenges faced by coffee-growing families. She watched her mother fight to change perceptions of Mexican coffee, helping transform Bella Vista from a little-known producing region into one recognized by respected specialty roasters throughout North America and beyond.
Today, Alisa carries that legacy forward as the founder of Dorado Select Brands LLC.
Dorado Select was created with a simple philosophy: the world’s finest coffees deserve to be discovered, celebrated, and shared without compromise. Rather than offering commodity coffee, Dorado Select focuses on distinctive, limited-production micro-lots sourced from exceptional producers whose dedication to quality can be tasted in every cup.
Each release is carefully selected for its unique character, traceable origin, and exceptional quality. Whether the coffee comes from the mountains of Chiapas, the highlands of Ethiopia, Colombia, Panama, or another celebrated producing region, every offering reflects the same values Alisa grew up with: integrity, transparency, respect for producers, and an unwavering commitment to excellence.
Inspired by generations of coffee-growing tradition and guided by one of the industry’s most respected exporters, Alisa is building Dorado Select to connect coffee lovers directly with remarkable coffees and the remarkable people who produce them.
For Alisa, every bag represents more than exceptional coffee.
It represents a family’s legacy, a producer’s hard work, and a promise that every Dorado Select release has been chosen because it is truly extraordinary