Differences, Distinctions, and Award Recognition of Honduras Coffee Estate Single-Origin Beans

Differences, Distinctions, and Awards of Honduras Coffee Estates

In 2011, Direct Coffee introduced Finca Santa Marta from the Ocotepeque region — the champion estate of the 2006 Cup of Excellence and one of Honduras's premier coffee farms.

Property Characteristics

Farm Name: Finca Santa Marta

City: Tegucigalpita, Yoro

Region: Ocotepeque

Country: Honduras

Altitude: 1,250-1,480 meters

Farm Size: 59 Hectares

Coffee Growing Area: 3-5 Hectares

Annual Precipitation: 1,300 mm

Soil: Clay loam, sandy loam

Annual Production: 400 bags of green coffee beans

Certification: Organic

Shade Trees: Guama, Liquidambar, Oak, Cedar, Guajiniquel and Musaceas

Water Source: Natural water sources from the Santa Marta farm

Coffee Characteristics

Variety: Catuai

Processing System: Washed

Flowering Period: September - October

Harvest Period: Handpicked from January through March

Appearance: Screen 18

Awards: 2006 Cup of Excellence, 1st place

Top Jury Descriptions: Cinnamon roast (60 seconds after first crack)

Aroma/Flavor: Peanut, nuts, almond, licorice, hazelnut, jasmine, starfruit, kumquat, honey, sugarcane, brown sugar, malt, frankincense

Acidity: Very fresh, clean, low acidity, citrus, berries, mint, low complexity, smooth acidity

Complexity & Other: Well-balanced, medium-long aftertaste, smooth oily texture, very sweet finish, silky smooth without impurities

Direct Coffee's Cupping Scores and Overall Comments

Cupping Date: 2011.03.05

Dry Aroma: 9

Wet Aroma: 8

Cleanliness: 9

Brightness: 9

Mouthfeel: 7

Balance: 9

Complexity: 7

Sweetness: 9

Acidity: 7

Aftertaste: 8

Cupping Score: 82

Overall Comments: After Finca Santa Marta took first place in the 2006 competition, it began collaborating with international buyers and has maintained excellent bean quality ever since. It's perfect for those who enjoy the lively peanut and nut aroma released after grinding, and the jasmine-tea sensation as the cup cools — a gentle, crisp, and delicious fine estate from Honduras with few drawbacks.

Honduras San Vicente Processing Plant - Pacas + IH90 Variety Washed

Region: Peña Blanca town, Santa Barbara Province

Processing Plant: Beneficio San Vicente

Variety: Pacas + IH90 (one of the new varieties developed by the Honduras Coffee Association)

Grade: SHG

Altitude: 1,300-1,500 meters

Certification: N/A

Flavor Notes: Almond, cedar, dark chocolate, dark fruits, plum, caramel, rich body

Introduction

Honduras began growing coffee in 1804 and now has 280,000 hectares of coffee plantations, most operated by small farmers whose plots are generally smaller than 3.5 hectares; these smallholders account for 60% of the country's coffee production. In 2011, Honduras's production surpassed Guatemala's, and in 2012 it became the world's second-largest exporter of washed Arabica beans, behind only Brazil. It now ranks as the seventh-largest producer globally.

Unlike the banana plantations once monopolized by large American conglomerates, 92% of Honduran coffee farmers are small independents. Coffee workers make up 12.5% of the country's eight million people, making coffee an extraordinarily important crop. On the plantations, farmers harvest red cherries, process them by washed fermentation, and grade them to market demands to satisfy different taste preferences.

Honduras harvests three million bags of coffee annually, supplying quality coffee with distinctive flavors. With abundant quantity and excellent quality, it has become the largest coffee-producing country in Central America and one of the world's ten largest exporters. The industry sustains hundreds of thousands of families and provides one million jobs — a cornerstone agricultural sector.

The major growing regions spread across the west and south: six principal regions — Copan, Opalaca, Montecillos, Comayagua, Agalta, and El Paraiso — with average cultivation altitudes above 1,100 meters. The coffee is 100% Arabica, with 69% graded HG, 12% SHG, and 19% CS. Main varieties include Typica, Bourbon, Caturra, Villa Sarchi, and Lempira.

Honduran coffee has consistently maintained high quality, and its prices are the most competitive among Central American countries. The small, round, slightly blue-green beans offer mild fruit acidity, full body, and subtle sweetness, suiting both blends and single origins and taking well to medium and dark roasts. Exports go mainly to the United States, Germany, and Japan.

Production keeps rising. In 2012, helped by favorable international prices, the year's output exceeded the 5 million bags of 2010, with significantly increased production and continuously improving quality.

The largest producing area is Santa Barbara in western Honduras, northwest of Lake Yojoa, which has developed into a famous coffee region in recent years. It also produced the renowned agronomist Angel Arturo Paz, who owns the San Vicente processing plant in the town of Peña Blanca, and he has been a perennial winner in Honduras's Cup of Excellence competitions.

San Vicente buys cherries from small farmers in surrounding villages such as El Cielito, Las Flores, and El Cedral (each with at least 35 families and a school). Though the quantities are often too small to process these farmers' lots separately, coffee from these areas consistently impresses with its high sweetness and fruit character.

San Vicente is a family-run mill with a strong local reputation. It helps farmers improve cultivation techniques and equipment through dedicated projects, maintains close relationships with producers, and strictly cup-checks every batch.

This Rainforest Certified SHG lot from San Vicente combines coffee from surrounding small farms for joint production and marketing. Since each farmer averages only 1–2 hectares, none can sell green coffee independently; they must pool their harvests — a model somewhat like a production cooperative. This particular batch (Edgard Tinoco) comes from a collective of small farmers in nearby villages who sell to the mill for centralized processing and sales.

Flavor Notes: Almond, cedar, dark chocolate, dark fruits, plum, caramel, rich body

Rainforest Certified Estate

Estate: Finca La Lesquinada

Region: Aldea Cerro Negro, Copan, Honduras

Altitude: 1650m

Processing Method: Natural

Roast Level: Medium

World Cupping Champion Flavor Description: Hazelnut, pine, apricot

Honduras has never ranked among the top names in specialty coffee, yet its natural advantages — soil quality, altitude, and climate — are excellent, and its neighbors Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua all produce advanced coffee. What Honduras has lacked is infrastructure and reputation in consumer markets: it is known more for commercial beans than specialty ones, so even excellent quality fails to fetch good prices. Beans from the Copan and Santa Barbara regions have long been mixed and sold as Guatemala coffee at Guatemalan prices, leaving the country's specialty potential unrealized.

The main problem has been that cherries receive only minimal processing and reach the mills still wet, so they often mold and spoil before being properly dried to the target 12% moisture, becoming defective through improper drying. With no price returns for quality, farmers, mills, and exporters had no incentive to invest in the coffee's potential — a vicious cycle that reduced Honduran beans to generic "mild blending coffee" rather than single-origin or estate lots.

But things are different now. With help from USAID, Fintrac, and cooperatives like La Central — promoting better farming, proper processing, and Fair Trade funding for equipment and farmer training — Honduran coffee is emerging from its low point as one of the rising Central American origins of recent years.

Brewing Method

Recommended water temperature: 88-92°C; grind setting: 4 (Tiamo 700s HG0421 grinder); 20g of coffee.

(1) Pour 50g of water for pre-infusion, 30 seconds

(2) Continue pouring to 300g total, steep for 1 minute 20 seconds, then drain

(3) Remove the filter cup at 2 minutes to finish

Honduras, like every origin, is very diverse — one description cannot cover it all. Besides the largest region, Santa Barbara, the others include Copan, Ocotepeque, Lempira, La Paz, and El Paraiso in the south, planted at 1,500–2,000 meters and mainly producing Strictly High Grown (SHG) beans. Generally, the Honduran coffees we have cupped recently show lower acidity and higher sweetness with distinct caramel flavors — an excellent choice for espresso blends.

Honduras

Population: 8,250,000

Although not designated by IHCAFE as a separate coffee-growing region, many roasters label coffees from Honduras's Santa Barbara area, since several producing zones extend into this department. Some argue it deserves its own description; the more appropriate approach is to list growing regions by official principles. Santa Barbara also yields excellent Pacas-variety lots with unique, fruity flavors when in good condition — absolutely worth pursuing.

COPAN

Copan lies in western Honduras near the city of Copan, most famous for its Mayan ruins. The region borders Guatemala — a reminder that the actual origin of a coffee can matter more than the producing country, since consumers find it difficult (unfortunately) to tell whether beans come from Honduras or Guatemala. Copan sits north of the Santa Barbara coffee region.

Altitude: 1,000-1,500m

Harvest: November - March

Varieties: Bourbon, Caturra, Catuai

OPALACA

Opalaca lies south of Santa Barbara, extending into Intibuca and Lempira, named for the Opalaca mountain range that runs through it.

Altitude: 1,100-1,500m

Harvest: November - February

Varieties: Bourbon, Catuai, Typica

Honduras - 2006 C.O.E Champion Estate - Finca Santa Marta

El Matazano Estate

Located between La Paz and Macala, El Matazano is owned by Francisco Antonio Castillo David. Francisco began cultivating coffee in 1995 and works with four families on cultivation and post-processing. In the past two years, fierce leaf rust has cut production by 50%, and they can only fight back with harder disease prevention and stricter quality control.

This year, El Matazano kept up its fine tradition by winning the Cup of Excellence again. Francisco notes that the level of Honduras's competition entries is so high that even reaching the international judging stage — let alone winning — is difficult; thanks to the close cooperation of the four families, they managed it!

Auchan purchased this same competition batch, of which only 15 bags exist. We have promised Francisco that as long as the same level is maintained, we are willing to buy long-term!

Basic Information:

Estate: El Matazano

Estate Owner: Francisco Antonio Castillo David

Estate Area: 3 hectares

Cultivated Varieties: Catuai

Altitude: 1,500-1,600 meters

Region: El Matazano, Tutule, La Paz, Honduras

Annual Production: 80 bags

Harvest Period: April 2015

Processing Method: Washed, sun-dried on greenhouse racks in the final stage

This Batch Label: Auchan Direct Relationship Coffee

Quantity: 15 bags

Cupping Flavors: Honey, caramel sweetness, bright acidity with sweetness, blackcurrant, pomelo, vanilla herbs, chocolate, stone fruits

Honduras San Juancito Lot#1

Country: Honduras

Region: San Juancito

Altitude: 1,450-1,550 meters

Processing Method: Washed

Because Honduras sits in the tropics, San Juancito's temperatures vary little across the year — "winter" is really the rainy season and "summer" the dry season. At tropical latitudes, altitude influences temperature more than the timing of rainfall, and San Juancito's elevation of 1,450–1,550 meters keeps conditions slightly cool year-round. In summer (March–June) highs reach about 26°C with lows averaging 18°C; in winter, highs average 20°C and lows about 14°C.

San Juancito's modern economy depends largely on agriculture, mostly small-scale coffee production, with climate and altitude highly favorable for quality beans. COMISAJUL — a cooperative of hundreds of small coffee farmers in central Honduras — is based here, growing coffee on mountains at 1,450–1,550 meters under the shade of banana, avocado, and papaya trees. During harvest, farmers hand-pick ripe fruit, wash-process it, and sun-dry it, while the fermentation water carrying pulp and skins is collected as fertilizer for the coffee trees. This coffee tastes very clean, with high sweetness, very gentle acidity, and milk chocolate flavor.

Variety: Bourbon

Processor: COMISAJUL Cooperative

San Juancito is a small village in central Honduras, 40 kilometers northeast of the capital Tegucigalpa, under the jurisdiction of Francisco Morazán along with Nuevo Rosario, Guacamaya, and Plan Grande, with a total population of roughly 1,400.

Historically famous for its mineral deposits, San Juancito is now noted for sitting within the buffer zone of La Tigra National Park — a rainforest ecosystem and Honduras's first national park, whose forest acts as a huge reservoir supplying drinking water to 500,000 residents of the capital.

Flavor: Clean, roasted nuts, milk chocolate

Honduras's coffee regions are grouped into six major zones across the west and south — Copan, Opalaca, Montecillos, Comayagua, Agalta, and El Paraiso — with average cultivation altitudes above 1,100 meters. The coffee is all Arabica: 69% graded HG (High Grown), 12% SHG (Strictly High Grown), and 19% CS, with main varieties Typica, Bourbon, Caturra, Villa Sarchi, and Lempira.

Bourbon coffee comes from trees of the Bourbon cultivar of Arabica. Bourbon was first cultivated on Réunion — called Île Bourbon before 1789 — which was later tied by France to the African continent and Latin America; today it is among the world's most popular Arabica coffees, typically grown at 3,500–6,500 feet (1,062–1,972 meters).

Hand-poured Honduras: 15g coffee, medium grind (small Fuji ghost-tooth blade #4), V60 dripper, 88-89°C water. First pour 30g of water for a 27-second pre-infusion, pour to 105g and stop; once the bed level drops to halfway, continue pouring slowly to 225g and discard the tail. Water-to-coffee ratio 1:15, extraction time 2:00.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Washed processing is a traditional method that uses water to carry the coffee cherry through flotation, pulping, soaking and fermentation to remove mucilage, further washing or soaking, drying, and hulling. The long soak drives chemical changes inside the bean, consuming simple sugars and raising organic acids — so washed coffees tend to preserve more of the bean's own character while showing bright, clean, fresh fruit acidity, and Honduras's famously clean, sweet washed lots are a perfect example of the style. Among FrontStreet Coffee's washed single origins, the Ethiopia Guodingding from the Guodingding village cooperative stands out: skilled smallholder processing yields exceptionally refined, clean coffee with jasmine florals and bright citrus acidity, and after a medium-light roast, green-tea and honey tones — suited to pour-over, cold brew, or espresso.

Kenya's double-washed FrontStreet Little Tomato is another benchmark: an extra round of washing and soaking pushes its juice-like character to the extreme, with cherry tomato, dark plum, snow pear, black plum, and yellow-sugar aromas in a sweet, tangy, juicy cup beloved by coffee enthusiasts. And for the classic expression of why washed processing exists, Jamaica's island climate and short sunshine hours are exactly what made washing essential: the FrontStreet Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1, washed for a luminous color and low defect rate, brews with pure notes of hazelnut, cream, chocolate, and caramel in a perfectly balanced cup where nothing dominates and nothing is missing.