The time we have all been waiting for has finally come! Our coffees are officially on their way to our warehouses in the U.S., Europe and to several of our partners across the world!
After several months well spent at origin, we were able to exceed our expectations this harvest season - both in the quality of our coffees and the relationships we continue to build with producers across Honduras' coffee lands! We’ll elaborate more in the following sections of the blog, but in short, we connected with new producers and communities, and strengthened our commercial and sustainability commitments with our existing partners!
That’s a total win in our eyes!
Yair and Andros with Don Selin, one of our longest-standing partners!
Discovering New Coffees
During our time in Honduras we had the pleasure to connect with new producers from Comayagua, Copán, Yoro, Lempira, and many other regions. It’s always an exciting experience to meet likeminded people who share the same values and passion for our industry, so we’re looking forward to growing our relationships with these producers in the years to come.
Their coffees were love at first taste, and we’re sure you’ll love them too! This year we’re proud to have new offerings from these producers, from consistent powerhouses for blends and espresso to experimental micro-lots that’ll leave anyone wishing for more!
Without further ado, we want to introduce you to the new faces you’ll meet as part of the Cima family!
Growing Alongside Our Producer Partners
The Next Step in our partnerships
Of course, we have continued to strengthen our relationships with all of our existing and long-term partners, including the new inclusions to last year’s coffee repertoire: Carlos Amaya, Bryan Bautista, Victor Contreras and Luha & Issel!
Andros & Carlos Amaya at the mill in Marcala
We met Carlos and Bryan last year and fell in love with the coffees they had to offer, and the feeling just grew this year! If you take a look at our current offer list, you’ll see that we have now committed to seven of Bryan’s coffees and six of Carlos’ coffees! That's a huge jump from last year, but not surprising in the slightest. The work these two young producers are doing with their production practices, processing, and communities is nothing short of outstanding!
Victor is another producer we met in recent years, and his knowledge of the natural world and coffee production left us in awe. He has a very unique approach to coffee production with a strong emphasis on biodynamic practices, which, paired with innovative and carefully controlled processing methods, result in some of the most interesting coffees we had the pleasure of trying - and you can too!
Exploring Finca Archanos with Victor Contreras
Luha and Issel come from a family of coffee producers that have been working hard for generations to bring about a positive change in the cultural and commercial aspects of Honduras' coffee industry. Their continuous hard work showcases the extent of their impact and experience in production, processing, and community development! They’re truly an outstanding partner and allies on our mission to promote all the great coffees Honduras has to offer!
Cima Classics: The foundation of our coffees
Of course, we’ve continued to source our Cima classics from our longest-standing partners - Don Selin, Don Orlando, Nelson, and Arnold Paz. After so many years working together, we couldn’t be more proud to call them family and partners.
Year after year, they have provided us with consistently good and exciting coffee offerings that have become staples for many of our clients, several of which were able to visit them this harvest season and learn about their production and processing firsthand!
Coordinating this origin trip so our roasting partners could learn more about the production process and cup the fresh crop in Honduras was an exciting step forward for us because we were able to further bridge the gap between producers and roasters, creating a more unified value chain built on hard work, passion, and trust!
SELECTING THIS YEAR’S COFFEES!
With all these amazing coffees from both new and long-term producers, it’s only normal that we spent countless hours at the cupping table. Being able to cup at origin, often alongside Nelson, Maritza and our producing partners, is a great first step in our QC process!
Cupping time at COMSA
Discussing the results of our cupping directly with them provides all parties with essential commercial, sensorial, and processing information — but the extent of our collaboration doesn’t stop there.
quality and sustainability IS NOT LINEAR
While personally being able to be at origin working hand in hand with our partners allows us to better communicate and share our expertise and market knowledge from a commercial standpoint, we believe it’s equally important to hear their experiences in the ever-changing world of coffee production.
Upon visiting our partners and spending time at their farms, we identified some common patterns that we should all be aware of and seek to understand:
Labor scarcity: Many producers we talked to, regardless of their farm’s size and region, are struggling to find collaborators to support their harvest duties, impacting both the quantity and quality of coffee that can be harvested.
Climate change: With unpredictable weather patterns and rising temperatures, coffee plants face increased stress, which affects yield and quality. It’s becoming increasing hard for producers to continue to implement their tried and tested methods and are forced to rapidly adapt to o mitigate negative effects farm-wide.
Harvest duties in progress
While it’s important to be aware of all the issues that have arisen with the changing times, this also brings about several opportunities to continue building our partnerships with coffee producers. This brings about a lot of expectations for what the future holds for us regarding:
Process innovation: As the market becomes more competitive and climate change continues to hinder production, our partners have continued to invest in their processing methodologies — from investing in their mills to improve infrastructure and equipment to experimentation with unique fermentations, while improving the quality of more traditional methods such as washed, naturals, and honeys!
Reforestation: Since last year, we have started implementing and supporting initiatives to restore and protect forest ecosystems, which are vital for maintaining the health of coffee-growing regions and help mitigate the impact of climate change in the process. We’re proud to be able to partner with several of our producing partners to launch and monitor our reforestation project in Copán, which will hopefully expand into other regions in the near future!
These collaborative efforts not only address current challenges but also pave the way for a sustainable and prosperous future for everyone involved in the coffee supply chain. This demonstrates that quality and sustainability are not guaranteed and that working towards these goals is not a linear process! These times, in particular, make us grateful to be at origin. It allows us to understand these issues firsthand and see how they’re affecting local communities.
By being on the ground, we can work directly with producers to figure out solutions together to continue to enjoy and share their coffees with all of you!
From our mountain tops to your cup
After all the hard work throughout the harvest season, it’s time for us to share these amazing Honduran coffee jewels with the wold. Nelson, Maritza, Andros, Jorge, and our producing partners worked hard to prepare countless samples so we could take them to SCA Expo, where we hosted a cupping featuring fifty of our most exciting offerings for this season alongside two of our newest producing partners: Evelyn Tabora and Pedro Turcios.
While it was our first time hosting such a large selection of coffees, we’re proud of the results! Watching and hearing people talk about our coffees is definitely a catalyst to continue work and promote our country’s coffees and its people!
Five months flew by in the blink of an eye, but looking back at our time in Honduras, it was such a rewarding and exciting harvest season. We continue to notice our partners’ improvement and innovation year after year, and we know that there are still countless coffees for us to explore!
However, we are extremely excited to announce that this year we have more than doubled our committed lots, and we have started shipping them to our warehouse in the U.S. and to our partners in Europe! Of course, this growth in coffee represents some exciting changes for us, and we’re extremely grateful for all the people who have been involved along the way, supporting this dream of connecting people through coffee in a good way.
You can now see our updated offer list with all of these coffees here, and feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions at all.
Join Our Journey
If there’s one thing this harvest season has brought us, it is unity. We built new relationships with producers, strengthened our existing relationships with our partners, and helped bridge the gap between both ends of the value chain by facilitating the relationship between roasters and producers!
If you’re interested in learning more about us, feel free to drop us a message, check out our socials, or give us a call. We’re always excited to share the wonders Honduras has to offer!