Ben's Visit To Honduras

This spring, our green buyer, Ben Turiano, spent some time in Honduras visiting two of our key partners in the region: Boncafe and San Vicente.

The trip was coordinated by Todd Mackey from Covoya, our longtime green coffee importer and a partner we’ve worked with for more than a decade. Todd has been an invaluable resource—and friend—to Joe Bean over the years, introducing us to many of our farming partners and helping us navigate the complex world of global coffee buying and importing.

Todd put together a small group that included Ben, Joshua Marsceau (Covoya’s West Coast buyer), and two other roasters he has longstanding relationships with.

Here’s Ben’s account of the trip.

Monday 

Landing in San Pedro Sula on the North Coast, we were met at the airport by Christian LeSage, who runs Boncafe, the group that assembles our La Navi microlot. From there, we drove to their main dry mill, where Christian gave us an overview of Boncafe and Honduran coffee.

A few takeaways from his presentation:

Christian explained that Honduras was colonized by Spain, but Spain did not establish as strong a presence here as it did in other Central American countries. As a result, the country is less developed, but more of the land remained under Honduran ownership.

Most Honduran coffee farmers own less than two hectares—not enough to make coffee their sole source of income. Many supplement their income by working on larger farms during the coffee harvest.

Boncafe works with hundreds of local coffee growers to improve quality and consistency. They collect coffee from farmers and immediately pay a base price. Once the coffee is evaluated, farmers receive an additional premium based on quality.

Around 400 producers contribute to the La Navi blend, Boncafe’s highest-quality blend. The majority of the coffee comes from 20 larger farms, with smaller farms contributing the remainder.

After Christian’s presentation, we tasted a few coffees and then drove about four hours south to the small town of Gracias.

Tuesday 

After breakfast, we continued driving another few hours to visit farms in San Sebastian. The roads were rough, mountainous, and unpaved, and conditions in the area were rocky, hot, and dry. Producers who utilized shade trees were able to maintain lusher coffee trees, but many farms looked to be in poor health.

Our first visit was with Domingo (and his son, Domingo Jr.), one of the La Navi producers. Domingo worked in the U.S. doing carpentry and landscaping for about 10 years and was able to save enough to buy a larger property in Honduras. His farm is seven hectares in total, spread across three lots. He utilizes several shade trees, and his coffee plants all looked very healthy. He had also recently built a new wet mill to process his coffee and is one of Boncafe's "success stories."

After visiting Domingo, we went down the road to visit his brother-in-law, Anastacio. His farm also utilizes shade to help retain moisture and is 13 hectares, producing a full container of coffee each year. Anastacio invited us to his home for lunch, where he served us his coffee along with soup, chicken, fresh fruit, and rice.

Afterward, we drove another four to five hours to the home of Moises and Marysabel, owners of Finca El Puente. Their farm is the most famous in Honduras, selling ultra-high-scoring lots to roasters like Tim Wendelboe, Counter Culture, Stumptown, and others. They built a large outdoor seating area and kitchen specifically for hosting visitors and were immensely hospitable.

Moises came to Honduras from Guatemala as an accountant and has approached farming as a numbers-driven business. In addition to producing high-scoring coffees, their farms run very efficiently. In total, they have 300 hectares of farmland and employ more than 200 full-time workers. Many of their workers also own farms, so they typically work at Finca El Puente in the morning and leave in the afternoon to tend to their own farms.

Wednesday  

Wednesday was spent visiting Boncafe’s dry mill and cupping a variety of their coffees. After cupping, we toured the mill and warehouse, where they explained their process for receiving and cataloging coffee. Coffees are moved several times based on cup quality, which can create a logistical headache.

Because of the challenges of separating microlots, Boncafe’s major focus is pushing high-scoring coffees into La Navi. Christian explained that even if they overpay for quality—putting an 85-point coffee into an 84-point blend—it’s cheaper and easier than separating every individual lot. His goal is to pay producers well while operating as efficiently as possible.

After visiting the mill, it was another four-hour drive to Santa Barbara, where we were picked up by the team at San Vicente, a mill and export group run by Ben Paz.

Unlike Boncafe, San Vicente’s mill is built around microlot separation, with a focus on helping producers develop high-scoring individual lots. Of the past Cup of Excellence winners, 70% have come from San Vicente and Santa Barbara. The San Vicente staff, as well as the farmers selling to the mill, were noticeably younger, with a lot of excitement around trying new things.

Santa Barbara is located between a large lake and a national forest. The area is significantly wetter, with very different trees and vegetation. Because of the high humidity, high-altitude coffee has a much wider spread of ripening, requiring seven to eight passes to collect all of the coffee. While these coffees tend to score very high, it also means they are consolidating exports across seven months of picking, which can be a challenge.

The San Vicente team took us to Javier Fernandez’s farm, where he showed us some of the experiments he is running, including cold-room whole-cherry fermentation. There were a number of new buildings on his property, including a brand-new cupping lab overlooking the lake.

Here we cupped cold-fermented Geisha, anaerobics, carbonics, and some co-ferments, along with some very juicy washed coffees. Javier has a large library of experimental varietals, dedicating more production space to those that receive high cup scores.

After the farm visit, we returned to the San Vicente mill to taste a few more coffees before heading to dinner at a Neapolitan pizza restaurant that Ben Paz also runs.

Thursday 

In the morning, we visited Ben Paz’s cafe, then returned to San Vicente’s mill, where we started by cupping several tables of fresh arrivals. Each delivery from a farm is treated as a unique lot, since there are often quality differences between early, mid, and late-harvest pickings.

After cupping, we toured the mill. Due to the abundance of microlots, space usage isn’t as efficient as at Boncafe, requiring unique stacks for each producer. While we were there, they were collecting all of the Cup of Excellence lots. Coffees are density sorted and then passed through a series of color sorters. Naturals are also hand sorted, since color sorters are less effective with them.

In the afternoon, we had the pleasure of meeting Jeovany Lara, one of our longtime farming partners, and his brother Rafa. The two brothers live in adjacent houses and have farms directly next to each other. To reach the farm, we hiked a steep, narrow trail through a preserved section of forest, where there were several trees easily 300 years old, as well as a natural spring. The hike was beautiful, but quite challenging. During harvest, they use mules to move the coffee back down the mountain.

Jeovany’s farm is on an extremely steep property overlooking the lake. He grows almost entirely Pacas, along with some Bourbon and a small plot of Catimor on the lower side of the farm (which is separated from the lot we buy). Because his farm is directly next to his brother’s, they are able to share resources and tools and coordinate pickings together. His farm also featured some large, old-growth trees.

Jeovany was very excited to meet me and delighted to hear how much we enjoyed his coffee. His youngest son, Jeovany Jr., joined us, singing cowboy songs while we walked—truly one of the highlights of our visit!

Afterward, Rafa invited us to his home, where he served us coffee and put on Bronco music videos for us to watch. Jeovany informed us that Bronco was considered proper drinking music and that Rafa could speak English if he consumed enough beer. The two brothers have a great friendship and clearly enjoy giving each other a hard time.

After visiting the farm, we returned to the town of Peña Blanca for a football match with the San Vicente team. After the game, one of the farmers hosted us at his sister’s gas-station-side restaurant. In general, the food we ate in Honduras included fresh flour tortillas, fried bananas and plantains, beans, avocado, fresh fruit, fresh cheese, ham, and chicken. The food wasn’t heavily spiced and tended to be mild in flavor.

Friday 

We visited Ben Paz’s cafe again, then left for the airport. It’s incredible how much Ben Paz has single-handedly changed the Santa Barbara area. He has provided a way for young farmers to forge their own paths and create their own unique stamp on the coffee world. The number of projects he is personally involved in is staggering—and seems to keep growing.

Overall, the trip was incredibly rewarding, especially being able to meet some of the farmers we’ve worked with for years for the first time. Being on their farms and surrounded by their families, we felt like old friends, welcomed with warm hospitality.

It was a powerful reminder that specialty coffee, at its core, remains a business built on relationships.