Honduras Marcala La Paz Marcala Coffee Region Characteristics - El Naranjo Sweet Orange Estate

El Naranjo Estate: A Premium Coffee from Marcala

El Naranjo sits in Marcala, one of Honduras's most celebrated coffee regions. In 2016 the farm took 14th place in Honduras's Cup of Excellence, allowing owner Carmen Fabiola Fiallos Melendez to realize her dream of becoming a specialty coffee farmer.

Carmen married into coffee, her husband was already a coffee farmer when they wed, and that's when her own work with coffee began. The couple divides the labor seamlessly: she runs harvesting and drying while he manages depulping. What they hope to pass on to their two children is not just a farm, but a love of coffee.

Marcala belongs to the La Paz department and produces coffees that can go toe-to-toe with those from Honduras's other famous region, Santa Barbara. The Caballero family keeps farms in Marcala too, their La Paz farm won the 2016 competition outright.

Coffee Details

Honduras Marcala El Naranjo Catuai Washed

Producing Country: Honduras

Region: Marcala, La Paz

Estate: El Naranjo

Owner: Carmen Fabiola Fiallos Melendez

Altitude: 1,315 meters

Variety: Catuai

Processing Method: Washed

Award Record: 14th place, 2016 Honduras Cup of Excellence

About the Catuai Variety

Catuai is a variety everyone in coffee runs into, a surprising number of quality Panama coffees are Catuai. In 1949, the Instituto Agronômico (IAC) in Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, crossed Mundo Novo with Yellow Caturra to create it; after several generations of selection it was officially released in 1972. Farmers love Catuai for its high yield and short stature, like Caturra, it suits dense, intensive planting, and after its release in the 1970s it spread quickly through Central America.

Catuai reached Honduras in 1979 and was commercially released there in 1989, winning over growers across the country. Today it accounts for more than half of Honduras's total coffee production. Its compact size allows dense planting, and above 1,300 meters it produces excellent flavor. The one weakness is susceptibility to pests and disease; Honduras's IHCAFE has been working on Catuai × Catimor hybrids to shore up disease resistance.

FrontStreet Coffee's Recommended Brewing Method

Recommended Brewing Method: pour-over

Dripper: V60

Grind Size: 3.5 (Fuji R440)

Water Temperature: 90±1°C

Blooming: 30g of water, 30 seconds

Pouring Stages: pour to 120g, pause, then pour slowly to 225g

Total Water: 30-120-225g

The goal is to saturate every layer of grounds in the dripper evenly with hot water, rather than re-extracting the same small patch over and over, which keeps the cup from tipping sour or bitter through over-extraction. Done right, you get a full, balanced, mellow, sweet profile with rich character. The ideal pour stream is wider at the top and narrower at the bottom: broad as it leaves the spout, tapering to a point as it ends.

Other Drip Brewing Recommendations:

French Press: grind size 3.5-4, water temperature 86-88°C

AeroPress: grind size 2.5, water temperature 86-88°C

Tasting Notes

The dry aroma offers spice, roasted peanut, and chocolate. The wet aroma carries subtle herbal scents. In the cup you pick out orange peel, nuts, and cream, a profile that calls to mind a cup of lemon tea.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

As the world's largest coffee producer, Brazil grows an enormous range of coffee, and its beans show moderate acidity with a lovely balance of sweetness, bitterness, and body, a profile that suits medium roasting perfectly. Expect an upfront nutty aroma, a smooth mellow taste, and a gentle acidity; Brazilian beans work beautifully both as single origin and in blends.

If you just want a first taste of Brazil, go for FrontStreet's pulped natural Cerrado Red Bourbon, a thoroughly classic Brazilian single origin. Cerrado is a celebrated growing region known for high-quality beans, and this lot is the Red Bourbon variety common across South America. Medium roasted, it shows rich aromas of creamy peanut, toast, caramel, and hazelnut, with a round, non-sour mouthfeel and only a light bitter edge. It works as pour-over, but also through a moka pot, as espresso SOE, siphon, or French press.

FrontStreet's other Brazilian single origin, the Queen's Estate Yellow Bourbon, comes from Mogiana near southern Minas, where fertile red volcanic soil feeds the cherries the nutrients that build its full aromatics. Local farms there split between those keeping traditional operations and those adopting modern, standardized management, and quality has improved markedly as a result. Yellow Bourbon is a rare find, a natural mutation of Red Bourbon with a cleaner fruit character. Brewed by pour-over, moka pot, or home espresso machine, FrontStreet's Queen's Estate shows a sugarcane sweetness you won't find from other origins, alongside fruit and chocolate notes.

Brazil's low acidity, balance, and friendly price also make it a fixture of espresso blends. FrontStreet's classic blend (rich crema), its nutty specialty blend, the barista-favorite Black Cocoa blend, and the café-oriented commercial blend all contain Brazilian components: the Brazil component contributes chocolate and cream aromatics plus a gentle sweet-tart-bitter balance, and its even temperament makes extraction more stable.