We recently visited Honduras to get a taste of the great coffee that country has to offer. Through farm visits, wet and dry mill facilities, co-ops, and cupping labs we were able to do just that. More importantly, we met some wonderful people that we are happy to be partnering with on our coffee journey.  

Honduran Coffee Alliance hosted the trip and did a fantastic job facilitating the introductions and providing the resources necessary to help us connect directly with producers.  From logistics to cupping lab facilities, Sean and Javier made it simple to focus on building strong relationships.  We look forward to working with them in the future.

The farm visits were the highlight of the trip.  Getting the opportunity to see the hard work that goes into producing coffee really puts things into perspective.  Most specialty arabica coffee is hand-picked and requires skill and knowledge gained through years of experience.  Harvest season is time sensitive at all stages of processing and knowing when to pick ripe coffee cherry has a big impact on cup quality.  Seeing the process up close and getting first-hand knowledge from these coffee professionals was inspiring on many levels.

The next step after harvest is the wet milling process where the outer layer of the coffee cherry is removed in preparation for drying.  We visited a large wet mill and walked through this process and had a great conversation with the owner about the realities of coffee life in Honduras and other producing countries.  He started in the 90’s with a few acres where he and his family ran the entire operation.  He now has around 50 full time employees, 250 acres of his own coffee, and is the owner of both a wet mill and dry mill processing facility.  He is the exception.  Out of the approximately 120k coffee farmers in Honduras, 95% are smallholder farmers who produce around 5.5 acres of coffee per year.  The next step in the process is dry milling where dried parchment is removed from the coffee when it reaches 10-12% moisture content.  The coffee is then bagged and sent to an exporter, who sometimes handles the dry milling process because of the logistical advantages of these combined efforts.

Each day we had an opportunity to cup the coffees from the farms and co-ops we visited to decide which ones best met the needs of our customers.  After identifying some unique coffees, I was able to visit one-on-one with Jocsan and Eduard Mendoza of El Tanque coffee farm.  These 2 brothers have been in coffee from a very young age and are quite entrepreneurial in their approach (they also own a hardware store and block making business!).  They have 10 acres where they grow a variety of coffees along with a processing and storage facility.  They utilize different processing methods from honey to natural and have started experimenting with some anaerobic coffees.  This process adds complexity to the coffee in the form of pronounced fruit notes with plenty of sweetness.  The brothers were gracious enough to invite me to lunch at their home which was, for me, the best part of the trip.  We had a great conversation around family and work, and everything coffee of course.  We look forward to bringing their coffee to our part of the world for you to enjoy.