With regards to direct sourcing, HondurasHonduran coffee was absent from the top ranks of the Specialty market, but that has changed. It has all the environmental factors on its side: soil, altitude, climate.... is a coffee originIn coffee talk, it refers to a coffee-producing region or country; such as, "I was just at origin." Of course "Origin" for most product we use is not... where we’ve struggled to find our footing. Part of the reason is that as a coffee producing country, Honduras has historically positioned themselves with volume-oriented exporters who place value on quantity over quality. Add to that the fact that most farmers grow disease-resistant hybrids rather than varieties thought to produce a good cup (like CaturraCatimor is a broad group of cultivars derived from a Hibrido de Timor (HdT) and Caturra cross, highly productive, sometimes with inferior cup flavor. The main issue is... and BourbonA coffee cultivar; a cross between Typica and Bourbon, originally grown in Brazil: Mundo Novo is a commercial coffee cultivar; a natural hybrid between "Sumatra" and Red Bourbon,...), and we’ve found ourselves struggling to find coffees we like.
Honduras is the #1 coffee producing country in Central America, out-producing most South American countries too. But of the 7 million+ bags exported last year, less than 1/3 are “value added” coffees: those that command a higher price than commodity coffee, based on certifications or level of cup quality. In years past, a booming coffee market helped bring somewhat stable prices to the country. But with the recent market hovering around $1.00, it’s become increasingly difficult to drive sustainability at the farm level from pennies on the pound (a problem we’re seeing in all producing countries).
After a leaf rust (“La RoyaCastillo is a selection of the Colombia cultivar that has become the most commonly grown coffee in Colombia. It is preferred to the older resistant variety, Variedad Colombia...”) epidemic claimed more than 25% of the 2012/13 harvest, the Honduran central coffee authority IHCAFEIHCAFE is the Instituto Hondureño del Café, with research facilities and cultivar gardens.: IHCAFE is the Instituto Hondureño del Café, with research facilities and cultivar gardens. They released... (“Instituto Hondureno del Cafe”) stepped in to minimize the fallout by offering farmers aid in the form of technical assistance, loans and disease resistant, “Catimor” coffee hybrids. The latter have certainly helped to bolster overall production numbers. But like we’ve seen in other countries who have suffered the devastating effects of leaf rust (see ColombiaColombian coffee is highly marketed and widely available in the US. They have been largely successful at equating the name Colombian Coffee with "Good" Coffee. This is half-true....), simply planting disease resistant hybrids doesn’t necessarily equate to higher value coffee. The TimorTimor-Leste (East Timor) is a tiny island between Australia and Sulawesi, annexed by Indonesia and liberated in a referendum several years ago. Small scale coffee farming was jump-started... Hybrid genes that makes these hybrids so resilient can also have a negative impact on the cup.
Of course, a lot more goes into cup quality than just the cultivarCultivar is a term used interchangeably with Varietal in the coffee trade to indicate plant material, although there are distinctions.: The naming of a cultivar should conform to.... 100% Bourbon grown at 1500 meters means very little if poorly processed. As we cup more and more CatimorAteng is a common name for Catimor coffees widely planted in Sumatra and other Indonesia isles.: Ateng, with several subtypes, is a common name for Catimor coffees widely... coffees from Honduras, we’re finding that the flavor profiles vary quite a bit (no surprise!),and are dependent on factors like altitude, processingThe removal of the cherry and parchment from the coffee seed.: Coffee is either wet-processed (also called washed or wet-milled) or dry-processed (also called wild, natural or natural... and when the cherryEither a flavor in the coffee, or referring to the fruit of the coffee tree, which somewhat resembles a red cherry.: Either a flavor in the coffee, or... is harvested. Once again we see that universal truths rarely apply in coffee.
Most of our Honduras sourcing the past 3 years has been through a Honduran export group in Corquín. Starting back in 2008 sourcing coffee from 35 producers, the number of farmers they represent has grown exponentially. They offer the farmers they buy from a tiered pricing program, paying value-added premiums based off of final cup quality as well as through farm certifications.
They now work in more than half a dozen growing regions across the country and their broad reach has afforded us access to coffee we wouldn’t have had otherwise. Last year we brought in nearly a full container of Honduras coffee (that may not sound like a lot, but a significant bump up for us), a volume I would partly credit to us having access to more coffees than in previous years.
Their growth hasn’t been entirely organicGrown without the use of artificial fertilizers, herbicides, etc.: Organic coffee has been grown according to organic farming techniques, typically without the use of artificial fertilizers. Some farms..., as they’re also part of a large multinational coffee company. On the positive side, this has meant the ability to finance coffee projects in the various growing regions they work in, including new processing machinery and infrastructure, a team of agronomists, a state of the art coffee lab and more. But the strains of being a customer of a rapidly growing supplier have also been felt to some extent.
Nevertheless, after cuppingCupping is a method of tasting coffee by steeping grounds in separate cups for discrete amounts of ground coffee, to reveal good flavors and defects to their fullest.... through several rounds of offer samples, we managed to piece together a fairly diverse container of coffee; especially considering they’re all wet processWet-processing starts by removing the outer skin of the coffee cherry with a machine called a pulper, then fermenting the remaining fruit (with green bean inside) in water.... I tend to think of Honduran coffees as being balanced and bittersweetBittersweet is from the language of chocolate, and describes the co-presence of positive bittering compounds balanced by sweetness. It is directly related to caramelization, but has inputs from..., because they often are. But this year many of the coffees we tasted were also fruit-forward and bright, delicate and tea-likeA term used to describe coffees with light, tannic, slighly astringent mouthfeel and tea aromatics. We find it in some Rwandan flavor profiles, among others., some of which can be attributed to the hybrid cultivars. Coffees that come to mind that are currently available are La Lesquiñada and Angel Vasquez. In addition, we have two more single producer lots that we sourced through this particular export group on the way in the next couple of months.
I should also mention that we bought a 30 bag lot from a new importer right here in Oakland for the first time this year. He’s a familiar face to us, having worn many hats at coffee import companies we do business with. A completely self-funded venture and without outside investment, he’s set out on his own to import coffees from producer groups and cooperatives that he’s come across during his years as a coffee trader. With an eye on conservation, he is sourcing from groups who are active participants in forest restoration. The coffee we picked up is fully organic, from a producer named Yuliana Aguilar in Santa Maria, La Paz. Tasting it side by side with a few other coffees from Honduras and El SalvadorEl Salvador coffee had an undeservingly poor reputation for years, marred mostly by the inability to deliver coffee of high quality in an unstable political climate. Unfortunately, agriculture..., Yuliana’s coffee stood out as being delicate and even ‘bright’ for Honduras.
While we may have struggled to find a consistent source in Honduras, we continue to come up with good coffee. I think as more small scale exporters with a mindset to identify farmers who are capable of producing top lots, and are willing to pay a premium for the added labor involved, we’ll continue to see an upward tick in cup quality from the region. We’ve made several trips to Honduras the past few years, cupping coffees in labs and living rooms, as well as making selections from our cupping lab in Oakland. There is a reason we keep going back.
In terms of finding coffees we enjoy, this year was a success and we look forward to exploring avenues new and old in the coming harvest.
