Origin: Honduras

Farm: Finca Oropendula 

Varietal: Catuai, Bourbon, Lempira

Altitude: 1500 MASL

Certification: Micro-Lot

Process: 36hr Anaerobic Honey 

Cup Score: 86.5

Apple, Dark Plum, Milk Chocolate & Sweet Peanut Butter 

So happy to have got our hands on another amazing extended fermentation lot from a young and enthusiastic producer called Igork Chazez. 

Farm

Igork produces coffee from Finca Oropendula, a farm that’s owned and been run by the Chazes family since 1957. Finca Oropendula is relatively small compared to many South American farms at only 4 hectors.

The now owner Igork, recently took over from his grandad and is pushing new experimental processing methods, extended fermentation and generally higher quality cultivation.

This particular lot took 3 years to perfect the consistency and manage all variables. 

Truly at a new level compared to previous lots!

Another part of Igork’s recent investments include the implementation of a roastery and café of their own in the local town of Santiago de puringla.

It’s incredibly rare for a producer to take their produce from seed all the way to cup!

The Chazez family are now very knowledgeable about the whole process of coffee production. 

Processing

After selective picking and hand sorting, the cherries are transported (30 mins) to the local mill for processing. 

When the cherries arrive they’re firstly cleaned and sorted by the way of floating, a simple but effective process that separates the underripe fruit from the ripe. Any ‘floaters’ are discarded and added to generic mixed lots.

Once washed and sorted the cherries are then sealed in airtight bags (see photos) and left to ferment in the anaerobic environment created for 36 hours at a PH of 3.7.

After the 36 hours has lapsed they are carefully pulped, this removes the parchment from the cherries but leaves most of the mucilage. This is particularly important as the following Honey process relies completely on the amount of mucilage left from the cherries to ferments over a space of days or weeks. The cherries are finally dried on African raised beds for 10 days whilst being turned regularly. 

Though this style of anaerobic process has many advantages; such as usually achieving higher cupping scores and using significantly less energy compared to chemical processes, it also comes with various disadvantages. 

The drawbacks include; a high labour cost, i.e man power, as the coffee requires continuous monitoring and is very sensitive to contamination at any stage if the processes aren’t carried out properly. Thus the biggest drawback of all is simply the duration. As the Anaerobic Honey process takes weeks to complete it simply makes more sense to not experiment with these methods, even if it makes a harvest more valuable, and concentrate on more traditional methods such as the natural or washed process. 

This is something Igork has decided not to do, as it’s the management of these variables and courage of these new producers that will ultimately push the industry to new places, thus creating new and exciting coffee such as this.