Honduras San Jose Carlos Damian

Carlos Damian's farm, "Bella Vista", is located in the village of San Jose de los Andes within the Western Honduras Department of Santa Barbara. He used to be a day laborer and vegetable farmer, eventually finding his way to coffee. He eventually purchased his 2.5 hectare farm that is currently planted mostly in Pacas variety, but with a small percentage of Bourbon (Pacas is really Bourbon too, though a natural mutation dwarf variety). Finca Bell Vista sits at 1700 meters above sea level, and he pulps and processes his coffee onsite. This is a wet process coffee, and Carlos ferments his coffee without water for around 18 hours, after which, he rinses four times in clean water to remove the remaining fruit. The coffee then moves to indoor, "solar" drying rooms where it is dried on raised tables for around 2 weeks, and hand picked of defects. We found out about Damian's coffee through Beneficio San Vicente, a mill and export operation in the nearby town of Peña Blanca, who have built a reputation over the past 25 years of working to put Honduras on the map as a source for high quality microlots. They've moved away from the volume-oriented business model, instead pushing to isolate quality through training programs with the farmers they work with, as well as continuing to improve their ability to manage small lots at their mill.