About This Coffee
Beneficio Santa Rosa is an exporter and dry mill, located in Santa Rosa de Copán. Santa Rosa serves organized producer groups, cooperatives, producer associations and large and small independent producers in the region. The mill receives coffee in parchment form, either wet or partially dried. Its main job is to prepare the coffee to export standards. Santa Rosa makes sure the coffee meets the international standards in terms of moisture content, grade and cup quality. The role of a dry mill in the production of quality is not often highlighted. We dedicated this regional coffee to the dry mill that processed it to draw attention to all the credit dry mills should get.
At Beneficio Santa Rosa, trucks arrive daily with the coffee from its various suppliers. Each lot receives a traceability tag so it can be followed and identified all along the processing chain. The quality team at the mill evaluates a sample of the lot and determines the price in correspondence with the quality. Beneficio Santa Rosa produces certified coffees, conventional qualities (SHG, HG) and specialty grade microlots. Each category has a different price premium. Beneficio Santa Rosa has various certifications to guarantee its commitment to the environment and the community. The mill is certified by RFA, FT, Organic, UTZ, Cafe Practices and Bird Friendly certification bodies.
Cultivation
Santa Rosa de Copán is Honduras westernmost coffee-growing region. The altitude in the region runs from 1,100 to 1,600 meters above sea level. Traditional varieties on the plantations across the region are Bourbon, Catuai and Caturra. Producers process their coffee by the traditional fully washed process. The parchment is dried on patios afterwards. The harvesting season runs from December to March.
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.