About This Coffee
Maria Rosaura Romero is one of the founding members of Cafés Especiales Corquin S.A (Cafescor) in Honduras. Her dedication helped found the cooperative and continues to support the cooperative as it branches out in new directions and takes on new members.
Maria Rosuara inherited a passion for coffee farming from her parents and she, in turn, passed that love on to her daughter, Lorena. Today, Maria Rosuara focuses mainly on taking care of her home and family while Lorena oversees the main activities on their farm. Lorena has a full-time career with Cafescor and together they’ve been producing excellent coffee that they’ve been selling through Cafescor.
Cultivation
In addition to coffee, Maria Rosuara and Lorena also grows trees for timber as well as fruit trees on their farm. These trees also provide shade for growing coffee.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
Maria and Lorena selectively handpick ripe, red cherry and process it on their farm. They lay cherry to dry and rake it frequently to ensure even drying. It takes approximately 25 to 30 days for cherry to dry.
Coffee in Honduras
Honduras is a small yet mighty coffee producer. The country boasts the largest per capita coffee production in the world. Beginning in 2017, Honduras began placing in third place for Arabica production volume globally. For this slot, they compete with Ethiopia—a country 10 times larger than Honduras. The two countries trade between third and fourth place annually, but the achievement is impressive, nonetheless.
Honduras has everything it needs to become a premier specialty coffee producer. The country has the right growing conditions, abundant fertile soils and soaring altitudes (nearly all farms are at more than 1,000 meters above sea level), plus a variety of microclimates.
Beginning in the early 2000s the industry began to focus on quality. Improved infrastructure (better mechanical dryers, centralized wet mills, an increasing number of solar dryers), quality control/assurance trainings (separating lots by qualities, cupping schools, etc.), the rise of specialty-focused exporters, increased volumes of certified coffees and the strengthening cooperative movement all have worked in tandem to make Honduran coffee ‘one to watch’.
It is only in more recent years that coffee production in Honduras has reached specialty levels comparable to other Central American countries, but specialty roasters are responding with enthusiasm. In 2017, a lot in the Cup of Excellence garnered the highest price ever paid for a Cup of Excellence coffee in any country: $124.50 per pound (approximately $56.50 per kg).
Above all, while Honduras increasingly offers high end microlots, what the country arguably represents overall is exceptional value. Quality has improved massively over the last 15 years, and in addition to unique specialty lots, the country offers very solid, clean blenders at very attractive prices.