Artisan Roast - San Isidro - Honduras - Honey Process

Salted caramel, milk chocolate and perfumed jasmine combine in this exquisite black honey processed coffee from the shade forests of Northern Honduras.

The cooler climate of the Copan region means farms at seemingly medium altitudes can produce excellent coffees. During harvest time the weather is cold, often damp and distinctly un-tropical. This helps to slow down the maturing phase of coffee but until recent years made it very hard to produce speciality coffee. The last decade has seen a lot of technical advances in the area and many producers or their co-operatives now own parabolic driers (sophisticated greenhouses) where coffee can be dried as producers want away from the limits of micro-climates.

This is very much the case for Osman Melgar, who’s co-operative Aruco, have been supporting their twenty-five members with micro-lot production at their facility. Some of this production was in honey processing and Osman has been leading this type of processing within the co-operative using his own shade grown coffee. There are various descriptions of honey processing, and black honey processing has an increased fermentation present in the flavour profile of the coffee. This comes as a result of a controlled coffee fermentation at the beginning of drying, often at different temperatures to the more common yellow honey process.

We’ve roasted this coffee to allow the care taken towards harvesting and processing by Osman to shine through. The nature of black honey processing helps accentuate sweetness and caramel like flavours. In the San Isidro this comes through as salted caramel and dairy rich milk chocolate. These sugar browning flavours are balanced by a beautiful perfumed jasmine finish which has excellent persistence. The taste balance is high in sweetness with a medium to low intensity acidity. This is supported by a dense creamy mouthfeel making it not only excellent as a filter but great as a single origin espresso too.

LETTERBOX friendly (single bag): YES