About This Coffee
COMUCAP, which stands for Asociación Coordinadora de Mujeres Campesinas de La Paz (Organizer of the Rural Women of La Paz), is a women’s coffee cooperative located in southwest Honduras. It was founded in 1993 by women seeking economic independence to support their families. Before Comucap was founded, men were the primary landowners in the region, making most of the business decisions around land use. Women were struggling to succeed socially and economically, so they decided to take action and free themselves from the economic dependence bounding them to their fathers and husbands. This initiative led women in La Paz to organize and create COMUCAP.
Read a Q&A about COMUCAP's inspiring story of how the organization grew from a grassroots initiative into a certified organic coffee exporter while operating a women’s shelter and a wide range of social programs.
Cultivation
COMUCAP's coffee is cultivated under varying circumstances. A small portion, around 5%, is grown under full sun exposure, about 15% of their coffee is cultivated under partial shade, and the majority, comprising 80% of their coffee, is shade-grown. By embracing these different growing conditions, COMUCAP offers a diverse range of coffees.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
COMUCAP employs diverse coffee drying methods, including concrete patios, mechanical dryers, parabolic drying beds, and solar dryers. These techniques ensure optimal drying conditions and contribute to the exceptional quality of their coffee beans.
Sustainable Harvest
Sustainable Harvest® is a specialty coffee trader focusing primarily on bringing coffees to market that are sourced from smallholder farmer cooperatives in the supply chain such as indigenous communities, women groups and the next generation of coffee farmers.
Their sourcing model is built on transparency, traceability and direct relationships between quality-minded coffee roasters and best-in-class coffee producers. Sustainable Harvest® has an on-site presence at origin with staff in Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Peru. Each office coordinates their supply including quality management, supplier relationships, source development, logistics, training and capacity building.
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.