Ana Valle, Founder

Born in El Salvador and shaped by San Francisco, Ana Valle grew up with coffee as an everyday part of family, culture, and hospitality. From her abuelita’s cafecito to coffee shared with pan dulce at family gatherings, coffee was always present.

That connection eventually grew into a career in specialty coffee and the founding of Abanico Coffee Roasters. Over the years, Ana has built her experience through roasting, evaluating, sourcing, and traveling to coffee-producing communities, developing relationships with producers across Latin America.

As a Latina and a woman in coffee, Ana feels a natural connection to the women producers she works with. Shared language, culture, and experiences have shaped relationships that go beyond sourcing coffee. Through Abanico, she brings those relationships together with her Salvadoran roots and San Francisco experience to create a specialty coffee company grounded in quality, culture, and hospitality.

Why Abanico?

Abanico (ah-bah-nee-co) is the Spanish word for a hand-held fan. Across generations, the abanico has been both practical and expressive—crafted in beautiful colors and designs and, traditionally, even used as a form of nonverbal communication known as el lenguaje del abanico, or “the language of the fan.”

For us, the abanico represents something both traditional and expressive—rooted in culture, yet full of individuality. Those qualities reflect how we approach coffee at Abanico: honoring where coffee comes from while bringing our own perspective to how it is roasted, served, and shared.