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Honduras
I’m not the only roaster in Texas to be offering a Honduras coffee. But maybe I’m one of the most excited. I just got a small supply of Honduras Finca Las Canas in this week and yesterday I was sample roasting for cupping and production roasts. This morning I cupped them out together: the light “sample” roast (just after first pop); the midling level roast, where the marbling on the beans is still very much evident; and what I would term the “full city” roast, where the marbling is almost all smoothed out and we’re awaiting the onset of second crack. It’s rare that I’ll roast anything too much into second crack, though if I feel the coffee calls for it I will certainly get myself into a rolling second before dropping the beans. I’m no chemist, but the long and short of it, as I understand it, is that all that coffee “goodness” is rolled up inside the bean and when you hit pyrolisis all of that great flavor, those sugar compounds and protein chains, break down and simplify as they carbonize. (Yes, carbon, as in charcoal.) And, though it lends an attractive, oily sheen on the outside of the beans, it loses its nuance, bright pop and fruitiness and you begin to taste the roast and not the bean, the fruit of the coffee tree.
Anyways, my point was that one has to be careful in roasting so as not to overwhelm the delicate characteristics of a particular bean from a particular geography. As a roaster I don’t want to impose my will on the bean so much as I want to the bean to tell me its own story. And that is why when I receive a shipment of new coffee I roast it to those three different levels. I want that coffee’s story to unfold to me so I can retell it over and again to my customers.
Oh yes, what did I find? Well, honestly I think the coffee needs to rest and mature for another day or so before I can get a good reading. Sometimes 24 hours is fine for cupping. Sometimes, as in this case, the coffee still feels a bit unfinished, which is a sign that it needs to hang out a bit more and degass.
But I will say that the initial signs are definitely promising. When I first sampled this coffee a couple months ago I was pleasantly surprised by its overwhelming sweet tartness. It was almost over the top with those bready fruits: bananas, dried papaya, tamarind. The beans I just roasted kept much of that intact; but this time I’m getting a definite lemon zing streak and bright acidity (that I think will abate and mellow by tomorrow into more of the earlier sample roasts from a couple months ago).
I should point out here that this coffee has an interesting back story. It is represented in the U.S. by Edwin Martinez of Guatemala’s Finca Vista Hermosa, whose story is briefly outlined in the July/August issue of Roast Magazine.
More later on this interesting coffee.
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more info? sounds nice, who is the “I” in the writing? gimme some!
that would be me: browncoffeeco.com
lemme know, i’ll send you some sampleage…
I just read your post of the Las Canas coffee you cupped. Interesting! Is this the Las Canas of San Miguelito, Intibuca? If we are talking about the same Las Canas, I was just there yesterday. The owner is an acquintance of mine.
I am a missionary from Arkansas working in the area. I am also a novice coffee farm owner and micro-roaster. You describe the coffee from this area perfectly. I am glad that Honduran coffee is finally getting the notice it deserves.
Thanks for the post.
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