Honduras "Honey Process"

Honduras "Honey Process"

• Roast Profile: Medium-dark
• Flavor Profile: Syrupy body, medium acidity with notes of chocolate, caramel, cherry and plum.
• Certification: organic, shade grown, Fair trade

This Honduras honey process coffee is organic, shade grown, and Fair trade and comes from the Ocotepeque region in Western Honduras. Here mountains are cloud-shrouded, volcanic soil lends its coffee-friendly nutrients, and temperate microclimates coax the best out of the beans.
In 1999, a group of 20 coffee farmers wanted to change their growing methods to be more environmentally friendly and grow better coffee for the specialty coffee trade. Today, there are 405 members of the Cooperativa Cafetalera Ecológica La Labor Ocotepeque Limitada (Cocafelol) co-op and they have been more than successful in producing award winning coffee with the highest of growing standards.
This special co-op is the first cooperative in Honduras to be carbon neutral. They achieved this in part thanks to the production of a biogas plant to produce biogas and bioethanol from plant waste. In addition, the co-op built a fertilizer plant that produces affordable organic fertilizers and sprays out of byproducts from pulping the coffee.

*About the Honey Process*
There are typically 2 types of processing coffee: washed and natural process. In a washed coffee, the pulp, fruit, and mucilage surrounding the coffee bean are mechanically removed from the coffee cherry (called “depulping”). The coffee beans are then washed and fermented in tanks and then dried. In a natural processed coffee, the beans are set out in the sun with the skin and flesh of the coffee fruit still on it. The honey process is somewhere in between. In honey processing, the pulp and fruit are removed from the coffee cherry, but a thin layer of sticky mucilage is left on during the drying stage. This resembles honey, which is how the process got its name, although no honey is actually used. The process adds a richness and smoothness to the body and develops more fruity notes in the cup.

Coffee growing on mountain slope in western Honduras

Trekking up the hillside to pick Honduras coffee

Picking the shade grown coffee in Honduras

Beans drying with mucilage intact to create the honey process