We don’t see this combination of origin and varietal very often. The cup is sweet and balanced—we find hints of raisin, plum and vanilla.
Noé Edgardo Rosas lives in Santa Rita de Copan in West Honduras. He has been working in coffee for about 4 decades already, although most of his time has been dedicated to conventional coffee. More recently he has been moving into more valuable varieties and processing.
In 2019, he began replanting part of his farm, establishing an 8.4-hectare area in his farm that is planted with the Marsellesa varietal. He is now planting more at altitudes between 950 to 1200 masl while looking for other high-quality options for blenders and single origin microlots. He acknowledges things aren’t easy, but this is a legacy he wants to begin for his family.
Noé, Dani and Navas
Supporting this endeavour is Sogimex, the exporting company and partner of Condesa Co Lab (our importers). On one hand, they provide Noé with financial backing for seedlings and building a new wet milling facility, and both mechanical and solar dryers; on the other, they find new markets to sell his coffee at the highest, fairest price.
Noé offers these new facilities for other farmers to use, hoping that all collectively helps bring the coffee quality level in the region upwards and onwards.
ORIGIN
Coffee is Honduras’ primary agricultural export crop, with 120,000+ farms contributing a third of its agricultural GDP. While this country has been historically known for its commercial-grade arabica coffee production, it’s only during the last couple of years that we’ve seen an increasing volume of specialty options coming from this country (like this one!).
VARIETAL
Marsellesa is a cross between Timor Hybrid (832/2) and Villa Sarchi (CIFC 971/10), which grows well in low to medium altitudes and offers a high yield potential and resistance to the leaf rust disease.
PROCESS
After picking and sorting through the harvest for ripe cherries, Noé depulps the coffee on the same day of harvesting. Pulped coffee is placed in a fermentation tank for 12 hours to facilitate the removal of mucilage, which is then cleaned with running water. In order to maintain consistent drying and prevent spoilage, Noé has built and uses a raised parabolic solar dryer, on which he places the washed parchment coffee for 15 days to achieve an exportable coffee with 10.5% moisture content.
