Honduras Finca Maria Bonita

Where in the world?

What’s the story?

Doña María Transito is part of the second generation of coffee farmers in her family, her mother María was the first in her family to dedicate herself to growing coffee.

When Doña María was 28 years old, she started her coffee production project using savings from her business selling sweets and food. This allowed her to buy her plot in the community of Guascotoro, San José.

Finca La Encantada is the farm she started from scratch with the planting of the nursery, then the planting of the chapolas (butterflies) which is the name for the newly germinated coffee plant with its first pair of leaves. This began the journey to a beautiful productive plot which allowed her to provide an education for her children and improve her family’s living conditions

Doña María’s son Pedro is also a producer of high-quality micro lots and together they have devoted a lot of time developing their knowledge of coffee varieties and processes, improving and enhancing the flavour profile of the coffees they produce. 

Doña María acknowledges that in the beginning it wasn’t easy working in the world of coffee, because at that time there wasn’t much knowledge around organic production, but as the COMSA community developed, she found allies in her vision of producing specialty coffee via high soil fertility, improved productivity and quality in the cup.

The process begins at harvest, selecting the cherries at their optimum point of ripeness. Once the cherries are collected, they are placed on a raised bed to double check and prevent damaged cherries from reaching the de-pulping stage of the process. 

The cherries are placed in the pulping hopper, de-pulped, and left in the fermentation tank to ferment under controlled temperature and time.

After reaching the desired fermentation, the coffee beans are washed and then placed on shaded drying tables, where they remain for an average of 12 days to be sun-dried, depending on the weather conditions. During this period a lot of care is given when moving the coffee to avoid damaging the beans in the process. When the coffee beans reach 12% moisture content, they are stored in clean bags to rest for an average of 40 days, to preserve and enhance the flavours from the fermentation.

All this dedication and skill has produced a stunningly complex washed coffee, rich with dark chocolate and raspberry sweetness, layered with notes of apricot and tinned peaches.

Brewing Recipe