Coffee Story
Celia Portillo manages a small 4-hectare farm high in Honduras' Comayagua Mountain Range called La Pacaya, where she grows Bourbon and Typica varieties. Until recently, producers in this region delivered their coffee in cherry form to the nearby town, where it was sold for whatever price the local buyers offered. This is the least risky and quickest way to pay for coffee, but it is also the least profitable and most prone to exploitation, as buyers set prices on a whim, leaving producers to take whatever they can get that day.
When informed of the opportunity to transition away from the prevailing model, Celia was willing to begin transitioning from the model her family had used for generations to process her coffee into parchment. With the assistance of Jesus' Chungo' Galeas, Celia and fellow local producers have been working towards a more autonomous form of production in which they harvest, process, and dry their coffees.
This is our first year working with Celia's Coffee, and the second year that Semilla has purchased coffee from her. For this harvest, the cherries were picked daily by a team of 12 pickers, floated to remove defects, and de-pulped the same day. Once de-pulped, they are dried on raised beds in a solar dryer for 20 days.
Honduran coffee quality can span a wide range, and tasting notes can vary from bright, acidic flavour profiles with subtle stewed fruit notes to coffees with more caramel and brown sugar sweetness and lower acidity, which work well for espressos. This lot from Celia Portillo yielded some of these aspects in aroma and flavour. A light roast made for a complex and interesting cup, with a structured brightness that is balanced by the sweeter base flavours of brown sugar and honey. Layered citrus notes, reminiscent of clementines and lemon, add a lovely “zing” to the cup. As the coffee cools, the texture begins to take on a creamy, cookies-and-cream note.
