Honduras San Juan Cito Lot 1 Washed Bourbon Coffee Bean Varieties, Brand Recommendations and Estates

Honduras Coffee Regions

Honduran coffee is divided into six major producing regions, spread across the western and southern parts of the country: Santa Barbara, El Paraiso, Copan, La Paz, Comayagua, and Olancho. The average cultivation altitude is above 1100 meters. All of it is Arabica, with 69% falling into the HG "High Grown" grade, 12% into SHG "Strictly High Grown," and 19% graded CS. The main varieties are Typica, Bourbon, Caturra, Villa Sarchi, and Lempira.

Bourbon Coffee

Bourbon coffee (French: Café Bourbon) comes from the Bourbon cultivar of Arabica. The variety was first cultivated on Réunion - known as Île Bourbon before 1789 - and after the island came under French occupation, Bourbon coffee spread to Africa and Latin America, eventually becoming one of the two most widely planted Arabica lineages in the world. Bourbon is typically grown at altitudes of 3500 to 6500 feet (1062-1972 meters).

Brewing Method

For a pour-over of this Honduras coffee, dose 15g of coffee at a medium grind (Fuji ghost tooth grinder set at #4) into a V60 dripper. Use water at 88-89°C. Start with a 30g bloom pour and rest for 27 seconds, then pour up to 105g and stop. Once the water level in the coffee bed drops to halfway, continue pouring slowly up to 225g, and cut off the tail section of the brew. The water-to-coffee ratio is 1:15, with a total extraction time of 2:00.

Honduras San Juancito Lot#1

Country: Honduras

Region: San Juancito

Altitude: 1450-1550 meters

Processing method: Washed

Variety: Bourbon

Processor: COMISAJUL Cooperative

Because Honduras sits in the tropics, San Juancito sees only modest temperature variation across the year. Its "winter" is really the rainy season, and its "summer" the dry season. In tropical regions, altitude shapes temperature far more than the timing of rainfall does, and San Juancito's location at over 1239 meters keeps conditions slightly cool year-round. In summer (March-June), highs typically hover around 26°C with lows averaging about 18°C. In winter, the average high is 20°C and the low about 14°C.

San Juancito's modern economy rests largely on agriculture, most of it small-scale coffee production, and the local climate and altitude are highly favorable for quality. COMISAJUL, a cooperative of hundreds of smallholder coffee farmers in central Honduras, is based in San Juancito. Coffee there grows on mountainsides at 1450-1550 meters, shaded by banana, avocado, and papaya trees. Farmers hand-pick ripe cherries during harvest, process them washed, and dry them in the sun. The fermentation water carrying coffee pulp and skin is collected and reused as fertilizer for the coffee trees. The resulting cup is very clean, with high sweetness, very mild acidity, and notes of milk chocolate.

San Juancito itself is a small village in central Honduras, 40 kilometers northeast of the capital Tegucigalpa. It falls under the jurisdiction of the department of Francisco Morazán, which also includes Nuevo Rosario, Guacamaya, and Plan Grande, and the town has a population of roughly 1,400.

Although San Juancito was historically famous for its mineral deposits, today it is best known for lying within the buffer zone of La Tigra National Park - a rainforest ecosystem and Honduras's first national park. The park acts as a massive water reservoir, supplying drinking water to 500,000 residents of the capital.

Flavor: Clean, roasted nuts, milk chocolate

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

A clean, chocolate-forward washed lot like this COMISAJUL Bourbon is exactly the kind of coffee that shines in a V60 - and it pairs naturally with the crowd-pleasing profiles FrontStreet Coffee roasts for its own V60 brews. Before the millennium, the coffee market favored medium-dark roasts built around body, high sweetness, and caramelized notes of chocolate, maple, nuts, and vanilla; classics like FrontStreet's Jamaica Blue Mountain No.1 and PWN Golden Mandheling were the darlings of that era. The V60's fast, efficient extraction renders exactly these rich, smooth profiles beautifully.

Since the third wave of coffee, the V60's strengths have shifted toward brighter, fruitier cups - the kind with layered florals, lively acidity, and tea-like sweetness, such as FrontStreet's Ethiopia Guji Huakui (Flower Queen) with its abundant tropical fruit, or FrontStreet's Yirgacheffe Guodingding with its classic Yirgacheffe florals. But for drinkers who prefer a mellow, low-acid cup, FrontStreet's PWN Indonesian Golden Mandheling is the natural companion to this Honduran lot: roasted dark, low in acidity, thick and long on the palate, layered with herbal and dark chocolate aromas and a whisper of earthiness.

If you want another balanced, non-acidic option, FrontStreet's Brazil Queen Estate beans deliver rich nut and cocoa aromas with clear caramel sweetness and excellent crema - equally good as a pour-over, an espresso, or a moka-pot brew. Whichever you choose, the recipe above (15g dose, 1:15 ratio, 88-89°C water, three-pour structure) is a dependable starting template for medium and medium-dark roasts alike.