Honduras · SherryCoffee Bean Intro:

Due to its outstanding flavor, PRIOR has chosen to list this coffee. Honduras is located in northern Central America, bordering the Caribbean Sea to the north, the Pacific Ocean's Gulf of Fonseca to the south, Nicaragua and El Salvador to the east and south, and Guatemala to the west. The region is mostly mountainous and plateau.

Honduras has 280,000 hectares of coffee farms, primarily small-scale farms, most of which are less than 3.5 hectares. These coffee plantations account for 60% of Honduras' total coffee production.

In the coffee farms, due to the mountainous terrain, coffee cherries are hand-picked, followed by careful processing to produce higher-quality beans. Honduras harvests three million bags of coffee annually, offering a large quantity of high-quality coffee, and has now become one of the world's top ten coffee-exporting countries.

Honduras mainly has 6 coffee-growing regions, namely Copán, El Paraiso, Comayagua, Opalaca, Montecillos，Agalta. The average planting altitude is 1000-1600m, with the main planted varieties being Bourbon、Caturra、Typica、Catuai、Pacas。

/  Masaguara ( Masaguara）

Masaguara （Masaguara) is a municipality located in the Intibucá province of Honduras, situated in the southern part of the JesúsdeOtoro valley, surrounded by mountains and hills. It is primarily dedicated to coffee growers, serving as the main engine of the local economy, while the corresponding areas of the valley are focused on growing staple grains and livestock. , The origin of its name: according to Mr. AlbertoMembreño's "Indigenous Place Names," Masaguara means "a place with deer."

/   Varieties (Catuaí, Catimor, Pacas)

Catuaí (Caturra) is a natural mutation of Bourbon (bourbon), discovered in Brazil in 1937. Its tree structure is not as tall as Bourbon, being shorter. Due to inheriting Bourbon’s lineage, it has weaker resistance but higher yield than Bourbon. Although discovered in Brazil, Catuaí is not suitable for growing there and thus is not widely cultivated, but it is popular in Central and South America, such as Colombia, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua.

Catimor is a hybrid of Catuaí and Mondu Novo, artificially bred. Catimor has relatively good resistance to natural disasters, especially wind and rain. Catimor trees are relatively short, and compared to other coffee varieties, its fruits are firmer and harder to pick, with both red and yellow fruits.

Pacas is a natural mutation of Bourbon. Like other widely planted Bourbon varieties, Pacas is a single-gene mutation. Its main advantages include small tree size, high yield potential, and the ability to be intercropped with other fruit plants to increase coffee cherry yield.

This variety was discovered in 1949 on a farm of the Pacas family in the Santa Ana region of El Salvador. In 1960, the Salvadoran Coffee Research Institute (ISIC) began a pedigree selection (selecting individual plants over successive generations, also called single-plant selection) project for Pacas. It became popular in Central America and is widely grown in El Salvador, accounting for about 25% of its production. In 1974, the Honduran Coffee Institute introduced this variety and planted it in Honduras.

/  Processing Method

First, the freshly picked coffee cherries undergo meticulous washed processing, then they are placed in whiskey oak barrels previously used for aging sherry for low-temperature fermentation 30-40 days (at a temperature of approximately 15-20℃), followed by shaded sun drying.

  "Sherry barrels" are barrels used in the whiskey industry for aging sherry. Sherry is a famous fortified wine produced in the sunny Jerez region of southern Spain. The sherry production process must include the solera system ( Solera System) for aging.

  The solera system essentially refers to the process of blending and aging sherry of different vintages after fortification. In the solera system, all barrels are stacked by vintage, with the oldest sherry at the bottom and the youngest at the top. Each year, a portion of the liquid is drawn from the bottom barrels for bottling and sale, and an equivalent proportion is replenished from the barrels above, creating the "uniqueness of sherry."