Honduran Speciality Beans

This Honduran speciality coffee hails from Honduras’s Cordillera de Montecillos mountain range, which sits in the La Paz Department of Honduras – about 75km away from Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. It is grown by Finca Liquidámbar, which was set up by a pioneering group of individuals (most of whom work for Cocafelol cooperative) who are passionate about organic coffee production. They turn coffee waste into organic fertilizer; with pulp developed compost processed by Californian red worm. They also use the mucilage to make different products that serve as foliar fertilizer to the farm. Some experiments they have made with organic fertilizer have been so successful they have brought the technique to Cocafelol Cooperative and rolled them out to other organic coffee producers.

The farm employs 18 members of staff and 12 more in the harvest. Until recently, this was spread across 28 hectares of production, but this has now grown into 45 acres with coffee trees following a programme of new planting, with the remaining 15 hectares under their ownership remaining dedicated forest.

The coffee is picked by hand on the farm and then immediately transported to Beneficio San Marcos for processing. Here, they have renovated their processing abilities to wash and ferment the cherry for 10 hours before transporting and density-sorting via water channels.

The beans are then dried on tarpaulins, raised beds, or poly tunnels (dependent on volume) for around 10 days. Storage and dry milling is also conducted on site, giving them the maximum amount of control of quality.

These Honduran coffee beans offer a rich and warming coffee with tasting notes of spiced orange, milk chocolate, and raisin. It’s a very versatile coffee but works especially well in milk-based espresso drinks. It can also be brewed as a pour over, with a Cafetiere, an AeroPress, or with a Moka pot.

Due to it’s Christmassy tasting notes, this Honduran coffee was our Santa’s Bean for Christmas 2023. However, it was so popular that we decided we just had to keep it on as a single-origin coffee.

Country: Honduras
Region: La Paz Department
Farm: Finca Liquidámbar
Variety: Bourbon, Catui, Caturra, Tipica, Pacas
Altitude: 1500 – 1650 masl
Process: Washed