MUCHO GUSTO

Mention Honduras and the mind conjures up a jumble of non-coffee associations: Tropical rain forests, Sandy beaches, Mayan ruins, Bananas, Panthers, Contras, Crocodiles, Cigars, and, as one tourist brochure poetically puts it, a land still dreaming under the spell of its own natural beauty.

Honduras is almost wholly mountainous, with narrow coastal plains. Two major mountain ranges running east to west divide the nation into halves. It is a republic bordering on Guatemala and El Salvador on the west and Nicaragua on the south and has both a Caribbean and a Pacific coast. The rugged terrain has limited the transportation network and kept the population of five million predominately rural and isolated. (Two out of the three railroads are owned by the banana companies, and all run along the north coast.) Read more

Last year we introduced a premium “flagship” coffee from Zimbabwe, trade-named “Pinnacle”, whose distinction was owed in part to being produced on only 8 select farms. One of those farms, La Lucie Estate, stands out for its near fanatical zeal in pursuit of the ideal coffee- production regimen. This year we are proud to offer the fruit of this single select estate. Read more

Equatorial Kebab

On the map, the Equator skewers Kenya like a tasty bit of shish kebab. This maximal solar exposure is modulated by monsoons and Indian Ocean tradewinds. The Great Rift Valley, which runs from Syria to South Africa dominates Kenya’s inland relief, giving its coffee trees the cooling and slow growth benefits of high altitude, free of frost. Read more