Honduras Coffee Price How to Drink Honduras Drip Bag Coffee Honduras Coffee Growing Conditions

FrontStreet Coffee knows that for many coffee lovers, there's nothing better than enjoying a cup of coffee anytime during breaks! Not only can it relax your body and mind, but it also provides an energy boost, making it the perfect fuel for office professionals. However, brewing fresh ground coffee requires not only equipment but also technique, which can be quite a luxury for many! Don't worry, there's drip coffee bags. When asked which drip coffee bags taste the best, the answer is obviously...

Honduras

Honduras is located in northern Central America, bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean's Gulf of Fonseca to the south. It shares borders with Nicaragua and El Salvador to the east and south, and Guatemala to the west, consisting mostly of mountains and highlands.

Honduras has 280,000 hectares of coffee plantations, predominantly small farms with most being smaller than 3.5 hectares. These small coffee plantations account for sixty percent of Honduras's total coffee production.

In the coffee plantations, due to the mountainous growing areas, people harvest coffee beans by hand and then carefully process them to produce higher quality coffee beans. Honduras harvests three million bags of coffee annually, providing abundant and high-quality coffee to the market, and has now become one of the world's top ten coffee exporting countries.

Honduran coffee can be divided into six major producing regions, mainly located in the western and southern areas: Copan, Opalaca, Montecillos, Comayagua, Agalta Tropical, and El Paraiso. The average altitude for specialty coffee cultivation in these regions is above 1,100 meters. 69% of coffee grown in these areas is HG grade, 12% is SHG, and 19% is CS.

Masaguara

Masaguara is a municipality located in the Intibucá department of Honduras, situated in the southern part of the Jesús de Otoro valley, surrounded by mountains and hills. It is primarily dedicated to coffee cultivation and serves as the main economic driver for the local economy. In contrast, the corresponding valley areas are dedicated to growing basic grains and livestock. The origin of its name: According to Mr. Alberto Membreo's "Indigenous Place Names," Masaguara means "place of deer."

Varieties (Caturra, Catuai, Pacas)

Caturra is a natural variant of Bourbon, discovered in Brazil in 1937. Its plant is not as tall as Bourbon, being more compact. Due to inheriting Bourbon's lineage, it has relatively weak disease resistance but higher yields than Bourbon. Although discovered in Brazil, Caturra is not suitable for growing conditions there, so it wasn't widely cultivated in Brazil. Instead, it became popular in Central and South America, particularly in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua.

Catauai is a coffee variety hybridized from Caturra and Mundo Novo. Catuai has good resistance to natural disasters, especially wind and rain. The Catuai plant is relatively compact, and compared to other coffee trees, its fruits grow more densely and are harder to harvest. The fruits come in both red and yellow varieties.

Pacas is a natural variant of Bourbon. Like other widely planted Bourbon variants, Pacas is a single-gene mutation. Its main advantages are that the coffee plant is small in size with high yield potential, and it can be intercropped with other plants and fruits, thereby increasing coffee cherry yields.

This variety was discovered in 1949 on a farm owned by the Pacas family in the Santa Ana region of El Salvador. In 1960, the Salvadoran Coffee Research Institute (ISIC) began a pedigree selection program for Pacas (selecting individual plants through continuous generations, also known as single-plant selection). It is popular in Central America and widely cultivated in El Salvador, accounting for about 25% of its production. In 1974, the Honduran Coffee Research Institute introduced this variety and began cultivating it in Honduras.

Processing Method

The refined washed whiskey sherry barrel fermentation processing method involves first performing refined washing on freshly harvested coffee cherries, then placing them in whiskey oak barrels that have previously aged sherry wine for low-temperature fermentation for 30-40 days (at approximately 15-20°C), followed by shade drying.

"Sherry barrels" are barrels used by sherry wineries in the whiskey industry for aging. Sherry is a famous fortified wine produced in the sunny Jerez region of southern Spain. The production process of sherry must include the Solera System aging process.

The Solera System essentially refers to the process of blending and aging different vintages of sherry after it has been fortified. In the Solera System, all barrels are stacked in layers according to vintage, with the oldest sherry at the bottom and the youngest at the top. Each year, a portion of the liquid is drawn from the bottom barrels for bottling and sales, then the corresponding proportion is drawn from the upper barrels to replenish them, creating what is known as the "uniqueness of sherry."

Representative Coffee Beans

[Honduras · Sherry]

Country: Honduras

Region: Masaguara

Estate: Moca Estate

Altitude: 1500-1700m

Varieties: Caturra, Catuai, Pacas

Processing Method: Refined washed whiskey sherry barrel fermentation

FrontStreet Coffee Honduras Sherry Coffee Bean Cupping Notes

Recommended Brewing Method: Drip Coffee Bag

Many people ask: should you bloom drip coffee bags? The answer: either way works, but the results will be slightly different.

No Blooming

Drip-style center pour

Parameters: 1:15 ratio; water temperature 91°C; 10g/bag; extraction time 1 minute; total extraction water 150g

Flavor: Vanilla, berry, chocolate, overall coffee flavor is quite light, clean mouthfeel.

Immersion-style center pour

Parameters: 1:15 ratio; water temperature 91°C; 10g/bag; total extraction time 2 minutes; total extraction water 150g

Flavor: Vanilla, honey, berry, chocolate, with juice-like sensation, relatively light mouthfeel.

No Blooming Summary

After comparing these two methods, although the drip-style produces some flavor, the filter paper of drip bags has good ventilation and fast flow rate, resulting in shorter extraction time. Many of the coffee's compounds are not fully extracted, so the overall presentation is quite light. The immersion method, however, soaks the coffee in water, achieving your desired mouthfeel within 2 to 3 minutes.

With Blooming

Drip-style single pour

Parameters: 1:15 ratio; water temperature 91°C; 10g/bag

Technique: Pour 26g water, bloom for 30S, then pour to 150g and stop, time: 1'34".

Flavor: Vanilla, honey, berry, chocolate, fermented wine aroma, overall acidity is very gentle, with noticeable honey sweetness in the aftertaste.

Immersion-style single pour

Parameters: 1:15 ratio, water temperature 91°C, 10g/bag

Technique: Pour 20g water, bloom for 30S, then pour to 150g and stop, time: 2'00".

Flavor: Vanilla, honey, berry, chocolate, with more prominent honey sweetness at slightly cooler temperatures.

Drip-style segmented pour

Parameters: 1:15 ratio; water temperature 91°C, 10g/bag

Technique: Bloom with 20g water for 30s, then pour to 100g, when seeing the coffee bed, pour to 150g, time: 1'40".

Flavor: Vanilla, honey, berry, chocolate, honey, fermented wine aroma, with distinct flavor layers.

Immersion-style segmented pour

Parameters: 1:15 ratio; water temperature 91°C, 10g/bag

Technique: Bloom with 25g water for 30s, then pour to 100g, when seeing the coffee bed, pour to 150g, time: 2'00".

Flavor: Vanilla, honey, berry, chocolate, honey, fermented wine aroma, with relatively rich and full mouthfeel.

Blooming Summary

Regarding blooming, we compared [drip-style single pour & immersion-style single pour] versus [drip-style segmented pour & immersion-style segmented pour]. After blooming, the degassed coffee particles can absorb water more uniformly, making subsequent extraction more even. Even with different extraction methods or techniques, the coffee flavors presented are relatively richer. Drip-style tends to highlight fruity acidity with rich and distinct flavor layers, while immersion-style tends toward nuts and chocolate flavors. This is mainly because water immersion extracts more large molecules like nuts and chocolate, covering the small fruit acid molecules that are easily extracted by water, resulting in a coffee that is overall more mellow and balanced.

Should Drip Coffee Bags Be Steeped in the Cup?

At the beginning of brewing, most of the flavor compounds extracted from the coffee grounds are fruit acids and floral aromas, followed by nut and chocolate flavors, and finally sweetness, while the concentration gradually decreases.

When we steep the drip bag in a cup for extraction, the liquid soaking the drip bag already contains a relatively high concentration of initially extracted compounds, so the concentration difference is relatively small. This means that fewer of the subsequent large-molecule compounds like nuts will be extracted.

Moreover, with the same coffee-to-water ratio, the immersion-extracted cup will taste more intense and mellow than the non-immersion extracted cup. This is because immersion extraction provides more complete and uniform extraction overall, with a higher extraction rate than non-immersion extraction. However, due to the high concentration, other flavors become harder to perceive, making the fruit acidity more prominent when tasting.

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