Honduras Cup of Excellence 2006 San Pedro Sula

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Honduras Cup of Excellence 2006 San Pedro Sula

I was last in Honduras as a juror at the first coffee competition ever ... before Cup of Excellence. The coffees back in that competition showed great potential, but also gave evidence to all the problems with Honduran coffee. These came in the form of highly defective cups, often occuring sporadically in what was otherwise a very fine coffee. What was the problem? Imperfect quality practices on the farm, especially in the wet-milling and drying stages, and a very "commercial coffee" treatment of the crop in transporting and storing the lots. The harsh reality of quality coffee production is that you can ruin an excellnt lot at any of 100 distinct steps from tree to green seed. There are still hints of these former problems, since the tradition of coffee in Honduras catered to lower end commercial coffee demands. In fact Honduras always had the potential for greatness in Specialty coffee ... there are unique high-altitude regions that have their own distinct "cafecultura", coffee culture, and put great care into their coffee. Now the milling and transporting has fallen into line with the quality coffee mantra, and small lots of excellent coffee can avoid storage and milling in the sweltering heat of San Pedro Sula. The evidence of the new approach to quality in Honduras was the almost non-existence of those tainted cups, in particular, phenloic cups. Last time I was here we were kicking out 20% of the lots for the occurence of phenolic taints. This time, I think there were 2 lots in the top 60 that had this unfortunate problem. Anyway, Honduras is changing. There are US brands on every street corner (Fridays, KFC, Burger King). There are some nasty gangs imported from the US too; the 18, Salvatrucha, etc. And there are gringos like me, telling them which coffees are good and which are not. Well, at least our goal is to help farmers get the best price possible for their coffee, not to extract wealth from the general population. In the next few years, as I have in the past few, I am going to offer absolutely bitchin' coffees from Honduras, and I anticipate I will continue to have trouble getting customers to buy them. I ask you please "Remember Honduras" . Remember them because they make your t-shirts, they pick your bananas, and they grow some amazing coffees that deserve more attention than they get. Cup a great Honduras from Santa Barbara, from Ocotepeque, from Lempira, next to a Guatemala Antigua or a nice Costa Rica and I can guarantee a photo-finish. Here are 3 pages of pictures from the 2006 competition, and a few are actually about coffee! -Tom

All my Honduras COE scoring through 3 rounds, plus top 10.

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You are here, in Honduras, for the 2006 Cup of Excellence competition, San Pedro Sula. Watch out for giant trees and big yellow dots.

Decayed donuts? Who thought THAT was a good idea? Upon your arrival, you'll see more american chains in Honduras than in Houston. Well, almost.

"Drink the good" at a price ... redemption.

The "mini super" down on the main road, always affiliated with either Coke or Pepsi.

In the tourist shops, motor oil and nic-nacs.

At the hotel "the view" is not quite as beautiful as the sign for "the view".

Fine art a La Hotel Copantl, San Pedro Sula. Hmmmm....

The other event at the hotel, the palm oil tasting competition.

A trip to a milling station, the low grown trees nearby already loaded with green cherry.

While others nearby (in the shade) are in full bloom.

Another rare coffee specimen I discovered on the trip (i think the total was like 10 new cultivars...)

My kind of art...

Old mill equipment with a young coffee tree forcing it's way up beside it. Around a mill, coffee grows like weeds.

Ihcafe, the technical arm of the coffee association. We visited their research farm at La Fe, Ilama, Santa Barbara department ...also the location of the Escuela de los Catadores; school of the coffee cuppers.

At the ihcafe research farm, cell-level reproduction of genteic crosses, in this case, ethiopian crossed with the existing catimor cultivars of ihcafe-90 and lempira.

Insect pride. I saw serveral collections on my trip. When something is beautiful, pin it to a board ... or take a picture.

I don't know a lot 'bout bugs but they shur r pretty

More pretty flyin' bugs.

More pretty flyin' bugs

Giant crawly thing

Reverend arnold, hallelujah. He is a coffee farmer, trainer at the Ihcafe cupping school, and coordinator for the 2006 Honduras Cup of Excellence.

We started with 3 rounds of calibration cupping, 10 cups that demonstrated good Honduran cup profiles, commercial grade coffees, and defective coffees.

Phil Anacker of Flying Goat Coffee sniffs the crust.

Norm from the Roasterie in Kansas City scores the calibration round. Later we blind cupped the same coffees scrambled to see how well we could identify them.

Addy of iceland.

The number crunchers at work. There is a seaprate staff hired to handle scoring, and an auditor to certify results. All coffees are given random 3 digit codes, that are scrambled with each new round.

Coffee is everywhere in Honduras ... that evening, a kiosk named after a coffee varietal: catuai.

My kind of artwork.

Judges photograph judges. It's a fraternity/sorority.

Fancy ass coffee farm that a fellow judge noted was more of a yoga resort than a coffee farm. Either way, it was a nice place.

The marimba treatment. These guys can really wail. Buenos Aires is located in Santa Barbara department, 1.5 hours from San Pedro Sula.

A little art show at the Buenos Aires farm - I bought the "santa cena" (i.e. Last Supper) made of rocks

Phil makes a new friend.

Finca Buenos Aires is owned by Roger Rajan, who owns clothing factories, I think. He had these Sivetz style roasters built in Honduras

Lotsa bike power in Honduras.

One of the best things about the yoga retreat was that all the coffee was blooming.

Blooming coffee has an incredible floral smell, somewhat like jasmine flower.

This tree had few leaves but tons of flower. I believe it is a caturra.

These are caturra (new leaves are green) but the farm has a lot of catimor too.

Finca Buenos Aires has coffee between 900 meters and 1250 meters. It is not extremel high altitude. They have a lot of red catuai cultivar.

Oh, there is so much more ... 2 more pages in fact.

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The last page has the winning farm list or you can check out all my COE scores

Honduras 2006 Cup of Excellence Winning Coffees
	Final Score	Coffee Producer Name	Farm Name	Area	City	State	Altitude	Variety
	Final Score	Coffee Producer Name	Farm Name	Area	City	State	Altitude	Variety
1	91.41	MUNIR HAWIT	SANTA MARTHA	TEGUCIGALPITA	VICTORIA	YORO	1,266	PACAMARA	1
2	91.36	JOSE ANAEL GUEVARA RAMIREZ	LAS BARRERAS	AZACUALPA	SAN MARCOS CAIQUIN	LEMPIRA	1,558	IHC-90	2
3	90.36	JOSE GEOVANY MARTINEZ	EL PEZOTE	LA LIBERTAD	LEPAERA	LEMPIRA	1,560	PACAS	3
4	90.14	TATIANA ISABEL LARA PINEDA		GUACAMAYA	DISTRITO CENTRAL	FRANCISCO MORAZAN	1,600	CATURRA	4
5	89.86	MANUEL ANTONIO TROCHEZ BAIDE	RIO HELADO	EL AGUACATAL	SANTA BARBARA	SANTA BARBARA	1,358	CATUAI	5
6	89.73	NICOLAS ACOSTA	LA MONTAÑITA	LAS MATARAS	SAN MARCOS DE CAIQUIN	LEMPIRA	1,675	PACAS	6
7	89.59	ELIO BANEGAS VALLE	EL OCOTILLO	LA MONTAÑA	YUSCARAN	EL PARAISO	1,250	TYPICA	7
8	88.91	MARYSABEL CABALLERO	EL PUENTE	LA PIEDRONA	CHINACLA	LA PAZ	1,580	CATUAI	8
9	88.09	JOSE ORLANDO ARITA	JIREH	RIO CHIQUITO	LA LABOR	OCOTEPEQUE	1,590	PACAS	9
10	87.45	RAFEL BANEGAS	EL BACHAN	LA VALENCIANA	YUSCARAN	EL PARAISO	1,200	TYPICA	10
11	85.73	GENARO AGUILAR NOLASCO	YAQUELIN	EL CARRIZAL	SAN JUAN	INTIBUCA	1,750	CATUAI	11
12	85.59	JORGE ALBERTO VALLECILLO YANEZ	EL COMUN	EL MATAZANO	SANTIAGO DE PURINGLA	LA PAZ	1,705	CATUAI	12
13	85.59	NELSON RAFAEL GUERRA CHINCHILLA	SESESMILE	SESESMILE	LA ENCARNACION	OCOTEPEQUE	1,600	PACAS	13
14	85.59	FILIBERTO RUIZ VELASQUEZ	LOS DURAZNOS	EL BELLOTON	LEPAERA	LEMPIRA	1,500	CATUAI	14
15	85.59	RAUL CALLEJAS WEITNAUER	EL EDEN	LA MONTAÑITA	SANTA LUCIA	FRANCISCO MORAZAN	1,650	CATUAI	15
16	85.55	SOLEDAD PINTO MEJIA	MANTEPEQUE	BOCA DEL MONTE	CORQUIN	COPAN	1,520	CATURRA	16
17	85.45	AZUCENA CABALLERO MORENO	EL ZANJON	EL JICARAL	SAN JOSE DE COLINAS	SANTA BARBARA	1,136	CATURRA	17
18	85.36	EMILIANO NAVARRETE AGUILAR	LOMAS CANGUAL EL NARANJIT	CANGUAL	SAN JUAN	INTIBUCA	1,670	CATUAI	18
19	85.36	ESTEBAN MADRID CHAVEZ	EL SAUCE I	EL SAUCE	SANTA BARBARA	SANTA BARBARA	1,440	PACAS	19
20	85.09	SAUL DOMINGUEZ GUTIERREZ	EL SAUCE	GUACAMAYAS	TEGUCIGALPA	FRANCISCO MORAZAN	1,500	CATURRA-CATUAI	20
21	85.05	JOSE DOLORES SANTOS CASTILLO	EL LIQUIDAMBAR	EL PLAYON	AJUTERIQUE	COMAYAGUA	1,568	CATUAI	21
22	84.82	SERBANDO GALO RODRIGUEZ	LA MORA	CHICHICASTAL	SANTIAGO DE PURINGLA	LA PAZ	1,751	CATUAI	22
23	84.82	MARIA IRMA GUTIERREZ HERNANDEZ	LAS MUJERES	GUACAMAYA	DISTRITO CENTRAL	FRANCISCO MORAZAN	1,550	CATURRA	23
24	84.50	BENJAMIN GOMEZ CASTILLO	ALTOS DE LA LAGUNA	EL CEDRAL ARRIBA	JESUS DE OTORO	INTIBUCA	1,623	IHC-90	24
25	84.32	WILMER DUBON CABALLERO	VISTA HERMOSA	EL CIELITO	SANTA BARBARA	SANTA BARBARA	1,570	PACAS	25
26	84.32	RAFAEL DE JESUS CHINCHILLA CHINCHILLA	LOS AGAPANTOS	EL SOCORRO	VALLE DE ANGELES	FRANCISCO MORAZAN	1,609	CATUAI	26
27	84.32	MIGUEL ANGEL RODRIGUEZ ESCOBAR	LOS GIRASOLES	CONES	BELEN	LEMPIRA	1,480	CATUAI	27
28	84.27	ALBA LETICIA OCHOA CAMACHO		EL CEDRAL	JESUS DE OTORO	INTIBUCA	1,550	CATUAI	28
29	84.23	JOSE OMAR CALDERON ROMERO		SUPTAL	CORQUIN	COPAN	1,400	CATURRA	29
30	84.09	EZRY MOISES HERRERA	LAS AMAZONAS	LA PIEDRONA	CHINACLA	LA PAZ	1,560	CATUAI	30
31	84.05	MANUEL DE JESUS VILLEDA PORTILLO	CERRO OSCURO	GUALAN Y CEMENTERA	LEPAERA	LEMPIRA	1,580	PACAS	31
32	84.00	PEDRO MORENO	MORENO	EL CEDRAL	LAS VEGAS	SANTA BARBARA	1,590	BOURBON	32
33	84.00	MARCO ANTONIO LANDAVERDE		BOCA DEL MONTE	CORQUIN	COPAN	1,450	CATURRA	33