How about Honduran water Kaddura? Introduction of Sanchez Farm in Opalaka production area

Country of origin: Honduras

Producing area: Opalaka

Farm: Finca Wilfredo Sanchez

Variety: Kaddura

Treatment: washing

Flavor: black tea, herbs, orange, brown sugar

Production area introduction

The Opalaca Mountains are distributed between the arid areas of Intibuca and Lempira. Due to extensive agroforestry management in Opalaca, sufficient humidity can be retained to successfully grow coffee in the area.

Coffee trees add bright color to the light hillside. Between 1400 and 1800 meters above sea level, there are many impressive peaks and hillsides, dotted with villages, including football fields, churches and several houses, usually surrounded by coffee farms.

Intibuca and Lempira are the most remote rural sectors in Honduras, famous for their strong male chauvinist culture. It is common to see a man riding a horse to take a cow to the field, while a woman is closer to home.

Most farms grow coffee neatly, mixing government-promoted Lempira and IHCAFE 90 varieties as well as Kaduai.

Wilfredo Sanchez is a member of COMICOVEL. He grows Kaddura coffee. His coffee was chosen as a miniature coffee because of its unique aromas of Assam tea, dried orange and vanilla.

Introduction to the manor

The COMICOVEL Cooperative (Cooperativa Mixta Cosecha Verde Limitada) in Intibuca, San Juan, is made up of small farmers who grow coffee organically, focusing on overall environmental sustainability. The cooperative is the product of the Blue Harvest Program of the Catholic Relief Service, which has improved agroforestry management on farms across Central America, led by Geovanny Martinez and advised by Carlos Carlos Guevara. To date, Blue Harvest has helped 1400 producers transform their farms into ecosystems that protect forests and their freshwater sources. All the producers in the project are organic farms.

COMICOVEL was set up to bring together farmers from the Blue Harvest project, who put their time and energy into improving the farm. The cooperative was founded in 2016 and exported its first batch of coffee in 2018. 2019 is the first year that COMICOVEL can be exported through Fairtrade and organic certification, which will give producers a premium to continue organic farming and ecosystem protection, thereby protecting fresh water.

The member property of COMICOVEL is located in the Opalaca Mountains between Intibuca and Lempira departments. Pine trees are usually planted in arid mountain areas. Planting trees is a priority for cooperatives and their water resources management project. Producers use their basic pulping and fermentation infrastructure to process coffee. Most have cherry buckets and concrete tanks for fermentation. The coffee is fermented in a tank for 18-24 hours and then washed in a sink. Most farmers dry their coffee on concrete terraces or sometimes on elevated beds in greenhouses for 14-20 days. Cooperatives have worked with these farmers for many years and have provided technical assistance to improve farm productivity.

This year, the cooperative improved the solar dryer infrastructure and dry grinding technology in the stacking bed to efficiently and consistently sort and process coffee in the final preparation phase of export.