About This Coffee
La Florencia is one of Isaura Martínez's most prominent farms, where she has been producing coffee for over five decades. However, for over four decades, Isaura sold her coffee to local intermediaries, unaware of the quality and destination of her coffee once delivered to them.
Isaura Martínez learned the art of coffee cultivation and processing from her father, Antonio Martínez. In 2015, she started working with Pacayal Coffee through her friendship with the Carrillo brothers. Initially, Isaura's coffee scored only 83 points, which caught the attention of Pacayal Coffee. This was unusual given the farm's altitude and coffee variety. Together, they evaluated the farm and discovered that the low quality was due to poor crop management. Nowadays, Isaura is meticulous in selecting only the ripest coffee cherries and harvesting only the finest beans.
Cultivation
Pacayal Coffee invests in several initiatives for producers, including best agricultural practices training to prevent Roya, economic empowerment programs for women, sustainable production practices training, and quality research to develop award-winning coffees.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
Isaura meticulously selects ripe coffee cherries, harvesting only the finest beans. These cherries undergo a water separation process to remove green and defective beans. The coffee is then fermented in concrete tanks for 12 hours and sun-dried on mud-brick patios.
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.