Honduras El Puente

And next up in our line of special and beautiful coffees, we’ve a lovely SL28 varietal from Honduras, El Puente. Damn, she’s really lovely.

As a fourth-generation coffee farmer, Marysabel Caballero’s bond with coffee is intimately connected to her family’s history. Coffee cultivation in Marysabel’s family dates back to 1907, when her great-grandfather began growing coffee in Honduras. According to family history, Don Felipe García grew and processed coffee in Marcala, then transported it by mule in sacks made of leather to a port in El Salvador to be exported to Germany. He received payment for his coffee in cloth, tools and fertilizers, which he sold in a small store in Marcala.
Moisés Herrera’s coffee story began in Guatemala, where he worked for a Guatemalan coffee exporter. On a work trip to Honduras in 1992, Moisés visited an area in the municipality of Chinacla, just outside of Marcala, which he observed had the ideal altitude and conditions to produce high quality coffee. Moisés and Marysabel were married in 1996, and together they began planting and cultivating coffee on their first farm, La Maltide.
Moisés and Marysabel are continually working to improve the quality of their coffee and the efficiency of their operations while caring for their natural environment. In 2020, they relocated their processing facilities in an effort to reduce water usage. The new design now relies primarily on gravity to move the coffee. Moisés and Marysabel also place a genuine emphasis on giving back to the local community. Each year, they help fund the renovation of one of their workers’ homes in Marcala.

TIM stands for Terroir Intensified Maceration. This fermentation process has gone through 4 days of anaerobic processing added with mosto (coffee juice from the previous batch of fermentation) to accelerate the process and strengthen the initial microbes in the fermentation process. The intention is to bring out the most the terroir can offer to the coffee.

Raspberry sweetness and red grapes juiciness. These notes are very apparent to us on the first sip. The coffee then takes a deeper bend and the complexity of sweet bourbon appears, lending syrupy mouthfeel and a silky body to the overall sensory experience. We finish with the lingering note of cacao nibs. Very enjoyable cup of coffee!