ALTITUDE - 1250 MASL // REGION - COPAN // PROCESS - NATURAL // VARIETY - IHCAFE 90

Blanca Rosa Melgar is the owner of 6 hectares of coffee in the Celaque area of Corquin, Copan. Blanca manages the farm with her husband, Arturo, and the couple have lived there since the 1970s. The farm is and has always been organic and Blanca and Arturo refused to apply any chemicals to the land. Amongst the coffee they grow several varieties of banana, orange, lemon and lime, guava and whole array of native vegetables. The family also have bee hives which they harvest honey from, mostly for consumption but also to sell locally, which provides them with a good additional income stream.

Blanca's sons Osman and Francis both work in the cooperative and have been part of the micro-lot project since the start. As they have seen huge increases in their household income, Blanca decided to produce as many micro-lots as possible. Given the altitude and the varieties they grow, it was decided that naturals would best suit the profile of the farm and they have had great success elevating the cup quality with processing.

This is the fourth year that Blanca has produced mircro lots through the cooperative who know have 38 members in the micro lot program that has grown from just 4 in the past 4 years. The producers will receive about 70% of the FOB price for their micro lots. This year the harvest for all producers was extremely difficult with increased rains during the harvest and a lack of pickers meaning a large amount of coffee was lost from either falling to the ground or swelling and splitting on the tree.

All the processing for the ML’s takes place at the Aruco mill to centralise and have greater control over the process to create consistent procedures but also to reduce the risk on the producer. The mill is also at 800masl which gives a drier more stable climate to dry the coffee compared to up at the farms where the weather can be less predictable.

The coffee will be delivered to the mill where they assess the cherry (take Brix) and decide on the process for the coffees depending on space and what the producer has done already. The cherry is cleaned and washed and then floated to remove any immatures

The coffee is then taken to the beds where it is dried for between 20 -30 days weather depending where it is turned hourly.