Honduras Best Coffee Beans Flavor and Taste Characteristics Description Honduras Local Coffee Bean Brands Ranking

FrontStreet Coffee offers coffee beans divided into three major categories, classified by the three main coffee producing regions: Asian coffee region, Latin American coffee region, and African coffee region. Whether in our online Taobao store or our Guangzhou physical store, you can see displays of various types of coffee beans. Today, FrontStreet Coffee would like to introduce this Lychee Lan coffee bean from the Latin American coffee region, featuring surprising wine-like aroma and rich nutty chocolate flavor.

FrontStreet Coffee specializes in freshly roasted coffee beans. A pour-over coffee in our store costs 30 yuan, and you can also purchase directly freshly roasted coffee beans. FrontStreet Coffee packages are uniformly in one-pound portions, ensuring they can be consumed within the optimal flavor period of the coffee beans. Some customers request grinding, and FrontStreet Coffee will grind according to the customer's intended use (pour-over or espresso), but we recommend consuming as soon as possible, as ground coffee beans lose their flavor quickly.

FrontStreet Coffee: Honduras Moca Manor Lychee Lan Coffee Bean

Country: Honduras
Origin: Masaguara
Manor: Moca Manor
Altitude: 1500-1700m
Varieties: Caturra, Catuai
Processing: Fine washed + brandy barrel fermentation

Honduran Coffee Beans

Honduras is located in northern Central America, bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Gulf of Fonseca in the Pacific Ocean to the south. It borders Nicaragua and El Salvador to the east and south, and Guatemala to the west. The terrain consists mostly of mountains and plateaus, with a tropical climate featuring mild temperatures and abundant rainfall, making it an ideal place for coffee cultivation.

Within Honduras, there are 280,000 hectares of coffee plantations, predominantly small coffee farms, most of which are less than 3.5 hectares in size. These coffee plantations account for sixty percent of Honduras's total coffee bean production.

Honduran coffee beans have seen many improvements and enhancements in processing technology and transportation capabilities. In the past 20 years of the coffee market, they have achieved significant development. In the coffee plantations, because the growing areas are mountainous, people pick coffee beans by hand, then carefully process them to produce higher quality coffee beans. Honduras harvests three million bags of coffee annually, mostly specialty coffee beans, and has now become one of the world's top ten coffee exporting countries.

Honduran Coffee Regions

Honduras has six main coffee regions: Copán, El Paraíso, Comayagua, Opalaca, Montecillos, and Agalta. Honduran coffee beans are grown at an average altitude of 1000-1600m, with main varieties including Bourbon, Caturra, Typica, Catuai, and Pacas.

Honduran coffee beans have a relatively large particle size, consistent in size, with uniform color and luster. For harvesting convenience, farmers prune coffee trees to no more than 150 centimeters in height, as taller trees would require ladders for picking, which is time-consuming and could damage the tree by bending branches. Since each coffee fruit matures at different times, maintaining the good quality of coffee beans requires manual harvesting, followed by selecting only the ripe red fruits. Coffee fruits on the same branch often require several weeks to complete the entire harvest.

Honduran coffee beans are characterized by a rich, mellow taste, neither astringent nor acidic, with high body and aroma, possessing quite distinctive characteristics. By adjusting different roasting levels of Honduran coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee can bring out multi-layered flavors.

Masaguara

Lychee Lan coffee beans come from Masaguara, a municipality located in the Intibucá department of Honduras, situated south of the Jesús de Otoro valley, surrounded by mountains and hills. The area is primarily dedicated to coffee growers, which is the main engine of the local economy, while the corresponding valley region is dedicated to growing basic grains and livestock. The origin of its name: according to Mr. Alberto Membre, the indigenous place name Masaguara means "place of deer."

Honduran Coffee Bean Varieties

Caturra is a natural variant of Bourbon, discovered in Brazil in 1937. Its tree is not as tall as Bourbon, being more compact. Having inherited Bourbon lineage, it has relatively weak disease resistance but higher yields than Bourbon. Although discovered in Brazil, Caturra is not suitable for growth in Brazil, so it was not cultivated on a large scale there, but became widely popular in Central and South America, such as Colombia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, etc. For Caturra cultivation, the higher the altitude, the better the quality, but correspondingly, the lower the yield.

When roasting, FrontStreet Coffee can clearly feel that when adjusted to light roast, Caturra has prominent acidic aroma and overall brightness. With proper handling, sweetness can be expressed very well, but the coffee body is relatively lower compared to Bourbon, and the cleanliness of the taste is somewhat lacking. Typically, Caturra has red berries, but in very rare areas there are yellow Caturras, such as the very few yellow Caturras grown in Hawaii.

Catuai is a coffee variety artificially hybridized from Caturra and Mondu Novo. Catuai has better resistance to natural disasters, especially wind and rain. Catuai trees are relatively low-growing. Compared to other coffee trees, Catuai fruits grow more firmly and are not easy to pick. The fruits come in both red and yellow varieties.

Honduran Coffee Bean Processing

The barrel fermentation method borrows from winemaking techniques. Its greatest impact on wine is that through appropriate oxidation, it stabilizes the wine's structure and incorporates barrel aromas into the wine. It plays a similar role in the coffee fermentation process.

The barrel allows very small amounts of air to pass through the barrel walls, penetrating into the barrel to cause moderate oxidation of the coffee beans. The appropriate amount of oxygen entering also accelerates coffee fermentation, softens tannins, and gradually develops fresh fruit aromas into rich and varied mature wine aromas. The moderate hardness of the barrel ensures good waterproofing and storage safety. Additionally, the barrel contains a certain amount of tannins. When raw coffee beans are stored during the process, the barrel's tannins also penetrate into the raw beans inside, giving the coffee layering and rich wine aroma.

This finely washed brandy barrel fermented Lychee Lan coffee bean is first processed through fine washing of freshly picked coffee fruits, then placed in brandy oak barrels for low-temperature fermentation for 30-40 days (temperature approximately 15-20℃), allowing the raw coffee beans to absorb the barrel's flavors, and finally shade-dried.

Beans processed through brandy barrel fermentation have soft lychee and honey sweetness, while also incorporating full-bodied brandy wine aroma and oak barrel fragrance.

Roasting Recommendations

This Honduran coffee bean from FrontStreet Coffee has a noticeable creamy aroma. To showcase the characteristics of this bean, FrontStreet Coffee's roaster created two roasting curves for comparison.

[Curve 1] Entry temperature: 220℃, yellowing point: 6'30", 151.6℃, first crack: 9'53", 183℃, development after first crack 1'40", out at 196℃.

[Curve 2] Entry temperature: 220℃, yellowing point: 5'50", 152.6℃, first crack: 9'15", 183℃, development after first crack 2'10", out at 195℃.

Cupping Notes

[Curve 1] Flavor: Floral, berries, dark chocolate, honey, lychee. In terms of taste, berry acidity is prominent, and as temperature changes, subtle wine aroma emerges when slurping.

[Curve 2] Flavor: Cream, dark chocolate, honey, lychee, brandy. In terms of taste, it's relatively full-bodied with noticeable sweetness. As temperature changes, wine flavor becomes prominent when slurping.

Brewing Notes

FrontStreet Coffee's brewing parameters are: Hario V60 dripper, water temperature 90℃, 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio, grind size (fine sugar: 80% pass-through rate on China standard #20 sieve).

Brewing method: Segmental extraction. Use 30g of water for 30-second bloom, then pour with small circular motion to 125g for segmentation. When water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue pouring to 225g and stop pouring. When water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, remove the dripper (timing starts from bloom). Extraction time is 2'00".

FrontStreet Coffee tries to control parameters and techniques consistently when brewing these two curves.

[Curve 1] Entry reveals berries, floral notes, honey. As temperature changes, brandy wine aroma and cream flavors gradually emerge. When hot, berry fruit acidity is clearly noticeable, but with a green astringency.

[Curve 2] Entry reveals lychee, brandy, dark chocolate, cream. As temperature changes, wine flavor and dark chocolate become prominent. The taste is full-bodied with noticeable sweetness in the aftertaste.

Comparing the two curves of Honduran Lychee Lan coffee beans, FrontStreet Coffee found that although [Curve 1] has decent sweetness and berry aroma, with berry fruit acidity on entry, the cleanliness is somewhat poor with astringency, and the aftertaste is insufficient. Although it has flavor, the fruit acidity is prominent, and the bean's wine aroma is not fully expressed, proving this bean is not suitable for light, fast roasting methods.

Meanwhile, [Curve 2] performs better than [Curve 1] in terms of wine flavor and sweetness, with distinct flavors and thick, smooth taste. From entry to aftertaste, wine aroma and dark chocolate flavors are prominent, with some honey sweetness.

Because [Curve 1] expresses more fruit-acid oriented flavors with green astringency, and the bean's flavors are not fully expressed, FrontStreet Coffee's roaster extended the development time in [Curve 2] to develop more flavors, making this bean's overall performance more balanced.

Important Notice :

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FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473