How Honduran Coffee Came to Be and How Honduran Coffee Bean Grades Are Classified

San Juancito's modern economy leans heavily on agriculture, most of it small-scale coffee production — and its climate and altitude are highly favorable for growing quality beans. COMISAJUL, a cooperative of hundreds of small coffee farmers in central Honduras, is based there. Its members' coffee grows on mountains at 1450-1550 meters, shaded by fruit trees such as bananas, avocados, and papayas. During harvest, farmers hand-pick the ripe fruit, which is washed processed and then sun-dried. Even the fermented water carrying pulp and skin from washing is collected and used as fertilizer for the coffee trees. The resulting cup is very clean, with high sweetness, very mild acidity, and milk chocolate notes.

Coffee Details

Variety: Bourbon

Processor: COMISAJUL Cooperative

San Juancito is a small village in central Honduras, 40 kilometers northeast of the capital Tegucigalpa. It belongs to the Francisco Morazán district, which also includes Nuevo Rosario, Guacamaya, and Plan Grande, with a total population of about 1,400 people.

San Juancito was historically famous for its minerals, but today its claim to fame 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 massive reservoir, supplying drinking water to 500,000 residents of the capital.

Flavor: Clean, Roasted Nuts, Milk Chocolate

Honduras Coffee Regions

Honduran coffee comes from six major regions across the west and south: Santa Barbara, El Paraiso, Copan, La Paz, Comayagua, and Olancho, with average growing altitudes above 1100 meters. The coffee is all Arabica — 69% classified as HG "High Grown," 12% as SHG "Strictly High Grown," and 19% as CS. Main varieties include Typica, Bourbon, Caturra, Villa Sarchi, and Lempira.

Bourbon Coffee

Bourbon coffee (French: Café Bourbon) comes from Arabica trees of the Bourbon cultivar. It was first cultivated on Réunion, known as Bourbon Island (Île Bourbon) before 1789, and later spread by the French to connect with Africa and Latin America — making it one of the two most widely grown Arabica lineages in the world. Bourbon is typically grown at altitudes of 3,500 to 6,500 feet (1062-1972 meters).

Honduras San Juancito Lot#1

Country: Honduras

Region: San Juancito

Altitude: 1450-1550 meters

Processing Method: Washed

Brewing Instructions

Hand-pour your Honduras coffee: 15g of grounds at a medium grind (Fuji Royal ghost-tooth burrs, setting #4), V60 dripper, water at 88-89°C. Pour 30g of water and bloom for 27 seconds, then pour to 105g and pause. When the level in the coffee bed drops to half, continue pouring slowly to 225g, avoiding the tail section. Ratio is 1:15; total extraction time 2:00.

Because Honduras sits in the tropics, San Juancito's temperatures vary little through the year — the local "winter" is really the rainy season, and "summer" the dry season. At these altitudes, elevation matters more than season. At 1239 meters and above, all four seasons feel slightly cool: in summer (March-June) the high is often around 26°C with lows averaging about 18°C, while in winter the average high is 20°C and the low about 14°C.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Washed processing is all about clarity — removing skin, pulp, and mucilage before drying lets the bean's own character show through with bright acidity and a clean finish, and this San Juancito lot (roasted nuts, milk chocolate, high sweetness) is a lovely example. If that washed-clean style hooks you, FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe Guodingding Cooperative takes it further: meticulously processed by the Guodingding village team, medium-light roasted to reveal jasmine florals, bright citrus acidity, and green tea and honey tones — wonderful as pour-over, cold brew, or even espresso.

And for the boldest expression of washed processing anywhere, FrontStreet Coffee's Kenya Cherry Tomato is the famous benchmark. Kenya's double washed fermentation — extra rounds of soaking, washing, and drying — produces an intensely juicy cup of cherry tomato, dried plum, snow pear, black plum, and yellow sugar, sweet-tart and vibrant, a longtime favorite of coffee enthusiasts everywhere.