How Does Honduras Coffee Taste? Arboleda Cherry Drunken Natural Process

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FrontStreet Coffee - Honduras Small Tree Estate Natural Cherry Dream Introduction

Honduras is the largest coffee-producing country in Central America. Coffee was brought to Honduras from El Salvador, and, as in other regions, Honduran coffee grades are set by altitude: coffee grown at 700-1000 meters is medium, coffee grown at 1000-1500 meters is premium, and coffee grown at 1500-2000 meters is designated special grade.

High-quality Honduran coffee typically features rich, complex fruity aromas with a crisp, refreshing acidity.

Honduras Small Tree Estate

Set in the mountains 50 kilometers southwest of the town of La Paz, this is a dry but cool, remote region. On a rather high mountain, the estate entrance sits at an altitude of 1720 meters. Several gardens lie on relatively flat slopes, while behind the processing plant two more gardens stretch toward the peak at 2000 meters. Coffee trees are planted all the way up the steep slopes to 1800 meters. In Sasa Sestic's Project Origin Best of Honduras Late Harvest 2016 competition, Small Tree Estate took third place.

Catuai Variety

Botanically, coffee trees are evergreen trees of the Coffea subgenus in the Rubiaceae family. Coffee beans are the seeds of the coffee tree's fruit, and the three main varieties are Arabica, Robusta, and Liberica. Most specialty coffee worldwide comes from Arabica, which includes many subspecies developed through evolution, hybridization, and mutation. The variety in this batch of beans is Catuai.

Catuai is a hybrid of Caturra and Mundo Novo. Caturra plants are short while Mundo Novo plants are tall, and the hybrid improved height to make harvesting easier. It tastes sweet, with a sweetness comparable to Caturra, less acidity and astringency, and none of the poor taste and flavor that Caturra can show - an excellent balance overall.

Honduras Small Tree Estate Natural Cherry Dream

Altitude: 1720-1850 meters

Varieties: Catuai, Pacas, Blueberry

Flavor Notes: Starfruit juice, brandied cherries, plums, dried mango, roasted almonds

Mouthfeel: Rich sweetness, sweet aftertaste

About FrontStreet Coffee

In short, FrontStreet Coffee is a specialty coffee research center dedicated to sharing coffee knowledge with everyone. We share without reservation simply to help more friends fall in love with coffee. We also hold three discounted coffee events every month, because FrontStreet Coffee wants to offer the best coffee at the lowest prices to more friends. This has been our mission for the past six years.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Natural processing is what shapes the brandied-cherry and dried-mango character of this Honduran lot, and FrontStreet's Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Natural Red Cherry shows the same style in a different origin. Only fully ripe, all-red cherries are selected and laid out on raised drying beds, away from the ground so the fruit is protected from insects, dust, and bacteria, and turned at intervals to keep the drying even. After a medium-light roast, the elegant florals and bright acidity of Yirgacheffe sit alongside a clear tropical-fruit character, a full fermentation note, and plenty of sweetness.

If you want to taste how far natural processing can be pushed, try FrontStreet's Colombia Sidra. Its double anaerobic natural method begins by sealing whole freshly picked cherries in a tank and injecting carbon dioxide to drive out oxygen, slowing the breakdown of sugars in the mucilage and the drop in pH, so the beans gain higher sweetness, more complex flavors, and a dense, creamy texture. The cherries are then dried on beds until the moisture target is reached and hulled. The result is intense tropical-fruit aromatics - passion fruit, apricot, candied fruit, and grape - with an almond-like finish.