Differences, Distinctions, and Award Status of Honduras San Juan Cidro Lot 1 Washed Bourbon Coffee Beans

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Product Information

Manufacturer: FrontStreet Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee)
Address: No. 10, Bao'an Front Street, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou
Contact: 020-38364473
Ingredients: House-roasted
Shelf Life: 30 days
Net Weight: 227g
Packaging: Bulk
Taste: Mellow and aromatic
Bean State: Roasted coffee beans
Sugar Content: Sugar-free
Origin: Honduras
Coffee Type: Other
Roast Level: Medium roast

Honduras San Juancito Lot#1

Country: Honduras
Region: San Juancito
Altitude: 1450-1550 meters
Processing Method: Washed

Honduras sits in the tropics, so San Juancito sees very little temperature swing across the year. What locals call winter is really the rainy season, and what they call summer is the dry season. In tropical regions altitude shapes temperature far more than the calendar of rainfall does. San Juancito's position at 1239 meters above sea level keeps it pleasantly cool all year: through summer (March-June) highs typically reach around 26°C while lows average around 18°C, and in winter highs average 20°C while lows fall to around 14°C.

The modern economy of San Juancito rests largely on agriculture, most of it small-scale coffee farming, and its climate and altitude are exceptionally well suited to producing quality beans. COMISAJUL, a cooperative of hundreds of small coffee farmers in central Honduras, is based in San Juancito. Its members grow coffee on mountains at 1450-1550 meters, shaded by banana, avocado and papaya trees. At harvest, farmers hand-pick ripe fruit, which is washed and then sun-dried. The fermentation water carrying pulp and skin from the washing step is collected and returned to the coffee trees as fertilizer. This lot drinks very clean, with high sweetness, a very gentle acidity and milk chocolate notes.

Variety and Processor

Variety: Bourbon
Processor: COMISAJUL Cooperative

San Juancito is a small village in central Honduras, 40 kilometers northeast of the capital, Tegucigalpa. The town belongs to the Francisco Morazán municipality, which also takes in Nuevo Rosario, Guacamaya and Plan Grande, with a combined population of approximately 1,400.

Although San Juancito was historically known for its mineral deposits, what sets it apart today is its position inside the buffer zone of La Tigra National Park — a rainforest ecosystem and Honduras' first national park. The park acts as a vast reservoir, supplying drinking water to 500,000 residents of the capital.

Flavor Profile

Flavor: Clean, roasted nuts, milk chocolate

Honduras Coffee Regions

Honduras divides its coffee growing areas into six major regions spread across the west and south: Santa Barbara, El Paraiso, Copan, La Paz, Comayagua and Olancho. Average cultivation altitude is above 1100 meters. The varieties are Arabica, with 69% graded HG "High Grown", 12% graded 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) is produced from the Arabica Bourbon cultivar. It was first cultivated on Réunion, which was known as Île Bourbon before 1789. It later travelled with French expansion to link the African continent with Latin America, and it is now one of the two most widely planted Arabica lineages in the world. Bourbon is typically grown at altitudes between 3500 and 6500 feet (1062-1972 meters).

Brewing Instructions

Pour-over Honduras. Use 15g of coffee at a medium grind (Fuji R-4 grinder), a V60 dripper and water at 88-89°C. Begin with a 30g pour and bloom for 27 seconds, then pour to 105g and pause. Wait until the water level in the coffee bed drops to half before pouring again. Continue slowly until the total reaches 225g, avoiding the tail section. The water-to-coffee ratio is 1:15 and extraction takes 2:00.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Washed processing is what gives a cup like this its clarity. The method is a long-standing way of handling coffee fruit with water: float the cherries, remove the pulp, ferment them in a tank to break down the mucilage, rinse or soak again, dry, and finally hull. Because the beans spend so much time in water, their internal chemistry shifts and much of the simple sugar (fructose and glucose) is consumed, which lowers total sugar content while raising various organic acids. The trade-off is a cup that keeps more of the bean's own aroma while showing bright fruit acidity, cleanliness and freshness — exactly the profile you get from a good Honduran washed Bourbon.

FrontStreet Coffee's washed range shows how far that method can go. The Gutingtin Cooperative is the place most people start. Many drinkers know Yirgacheffe without realizing that local farms are tiny and deliver their cherries to a cooperative for shared processing; Gutingtin is one such team, based in Gutingtin village, with well-honed processing skills and a cup that is especially fine and clean, which is how it earned its reputation. Because it is washed, Gutingtin puts its jasmine florals and bright citrus acidity front and centre, and a medium-light roast adds green tea and honey notes; it suits pour-over, cold brew and espresso alike. The Kenya Cherry Tomato is one of the best-known flagships of washed processing, because Kenya excels at the double-wash method: the beans are washed, floated, rinsed to strip any remaining mucilage, soaked in water, dried, and hulled. The repeated rinsing and soaking push the juice sensation to its limit, yielding cherry tomato, smoked plum, snow pear, black plum and brown sugar aromas with a sweet-sour, juicy body. The Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1 explains why washing was adopted in the first place. Jamaica's island climate gets less sunshine than most origins, so removing skin, pulp and mucilage before drying cuts the water trapped around the bean, shortens drying time and produces bright, low-defect beans — the guarantee behind Blue Mountain's rich aroma and its pure hazelnut, cream, chocolate and caramel character, with no flavour standing out or falling short.

Washed coffees like these are usually brewed as pour-over at a moderate temperature with a medium grind. Keep the pour steady and finish the drawdown on time; the clarity and sweetness that define a good washed cup depend on it.