Connecting With Partners in Honduras

Hampton Coffee Company’s Roasting Team recently traveled to origin in Central America to visit our Direct Trade Coffee partners in Honduras. The six day trip was organized by Cereza Coffee, which connects farmers with small coffee roasters like Hampton Coffee, ensuring that coffee farmers get paid a fair price for their green beans and the Roasters’ customers get to enjoy amazing coffee.

For the Team from Hampton Coffee, one highlight of the trip included meeting the farmers and leaders from Cooperativa Flor del Café in Lepaera, Lempira, and touring one of the group’s farms. Thanks to the farmers that organize cooperatives like this one, many small farmers in an area are able to benefit by pooling their harvests into bigger shipments and investing in machinery together. After the group from HCC had the chance to ask questions, the Flor del Café members were curious about HCC’s impression of the coffee they were buying from them and what they looked for in the green beans they purchase.

Another important part of their journey to Honduras’s coffee growing region was visiting a producer named Oswal Zavala in the city of Comayagua. Here, besides getting to learn more about coffee trees and farming, Oswal taught the HCC Team about his drying process. “Most coffee drinkers don’t realize how much physical work and effort goes into coffee by the time that brewed cup is handed to you at one of our cafés,” said Roastmaster Oscar Amada. “Seeing just what goes into getting these green beans grown, harvested, and processed is just so much. And that’s only half of the journey. The beans still have a long way to go before the shipment arrives at our Roastery and get roasted.”

This was our second time visiting coffee cooperatives at origin, having traveled to Colombia several years ago to visit our Direct Trade Coffee partners there in the “Coffee Triangle”. Thanks to partnerships like this one with farmers in Honduras, more than 80% of the coffee that we roast is Direct Trade.