Honey Processed Honduras

• Taste: Sweet, tropical fruit
• Roast: Medium
• Body: Medium and creamy
• Acidity: Medium and balanced
• Cooperative: Café Orgánico Marcala (COMSA)

COMSA was founded in 2001 to provide small-scale farmers with development opportunities. This cooperative has weathered changing from conventional to organic production and found fairer pricing as it has moved from commercial markets to specialty buyers. It is now recognized for innovative ideas from farming methods to processing, including organic growing techniques that provide their coffee trees with exceptional resistance to the devastating Roya fungus. The farmers of COMSA maintain their own processing plants and have added an environmentally friendly method known as "honey process". In the typical wet method of processing coffee, the coffee cherries are milled to remove the pulp and then washed extensively to remove the mucilage from the parchment that encases the seed. Honey processing is a water conserving technique in which the mucilage is allowed to remain on the parchment. This sticky coating (referred to as "honey") remains on the seeds as they dry and the resulting coffee has a distinctive fruity, almost floral, aroma and flavor.