Honduras Finca Las Lomitas

This is our very first time working with Juan Breniel through Honduran Coffee Alliance. In 2005 Juan moved to the United States for work with the goal of saving money to buy a coffee farm. He worked in the U.S. for three years and was able to purchase his farm in 2008. The Las Lomitas farm, located in the village of Zacateras in Olancho has a total area of 3.48 hectares, of which 1.39 hectares are planted with coffee trees in production, and 0.7 hectares have two-year-old plants that will start producing in the 2024-2025 harvest season. Juan washes, ferments, and pulps all of the coffee right on the farm.

Since childhood Juan Breniel has wanted to become a coffee farmer because he’d watched his father and grandfather work in this field, becoming captivated by the trees and the forest. After the attack of the coffee rust plague that affected many coffee farms, Juan decided to formally train in coffee farm management. Despite the continued presence of coffee rust in all coffee plantations, he has learned to work against it and produces one of the best coffees in Olancho. He is currently planning to start work on building a small house on the coffee farm to spend many seasons there and adding more coffee trees to his farm, leaving a small part reserved as a protected natural area.

The production of Las Lomitas farm has been sold 60% as a micro-lot and 27% as part of a regional lot designed by the organization he is an active member of - ELEVAR. This has helped Juan receive a better price than he would if his coffee were sold locally to intermediaries. We purchased all 3 bags of the micro-lot production available and it is 100% Lempira variety grown at about 1350 masl. This coffee is wonderfully complex, juicy, and clean! We get notes of pear, sugarcane, tangerine, and vanilla.

Transparency data

Our price FOB - $5.25/lb

Total to producer: $3.53/lb

Coop margin: .38/lb

Export costs via Boncafe: .$0.45/lb

Import costs and margin to HCA: $0.30/lb