Honduras is more know for the washed coffees, and we were pleasantly surprised by how much we liked this naturally processed one from Disnel.
There is a boozy undertone with this coffee while also giving a super sweet cup. This almost reminded us of dark rhum with simple syrup.
The coffee is fruity and a little citric, but what caught our attention was the banana notes. We also had some nuttiness, like pistachio and walnut.
The cherries were put into sealed bags to ferment for 60 hours right after picking. Then they were brought down to Disnel’s mother’s home where the seeds were placed on raised beds to be dried in full sun for 25 days. Overnight, the beds are covered with plastic to reduce the possibility of moisture affecting the seeds.
Semilla has been working with Disnel for the past 3 harvests, but he first began farming his plot in 2012. Having worked with his father since he was a child, he boast more than 20 years of farming experience despite his young 30 years of age. This is a common story for many of the young smallholders Semilla works with. They have a lifetime of stories of volatility and struggle, especially since the early 2000s when hurricanes decimated the country’s production and, simultaneously, the coffee market began to free-fall as costs skyrocketed.
Semilla's work in Honduras is almost inclusively in a series of hamlets stretched along the peaks of the Montecillos mountain range that crosses La Paz and Comayagua departments, and in these areas, the smallholder growers they buy from have been involved in coffee growing as a principal income source for years if not generations.
Many growers have explained to them that the prices they've receive in the conventional model are simply not high enough to generate profits. This is a common refrain heard in Honduras these days, that coffee farming at best can generate enough money to pay the pickers and the input costs but often fails to do even that. That is why we are happy to work with Semilla: they pay more than double what the ''market'' would have paid those farmers. (see our transparency report for more)
Over the last 15 years, the Canadian government has impacted the trajectory of Honduran democracy to create favourable conditions for Canadian corporations within the country, often to the detriment of the Honduran people. Buying coffee consciously is a small but powerful way to try to undo those imperialist efforts.
