single origin: light roast
partnership coffee: micro lot
Honduras
El Aguila, Lempira
Francis Castillo

An earthy aroma leads to a smooth, smoky flavor with hints of dark chocolate. This coffee features a low acidity no often found in a light roast.

Processing: wet hulled method, patio dried
Varieties: Caturra, IHCAFE 90, Lempira
Elevation: 4400’
Harvest Season: December – March 2011
Small Batch Roasting at its Finest

About Uncommon Grounds Partnership Coffee Producer Francis Castillo

Along the tops of La Union’s mountainous peaks live the people of El Aquila, a community founded just over a century ago by bringing in workers to pick the coffee of large landowning families. There are many individuals such as Francis Castillo who try to make the most of a tough situation. He lives with his wife and father and has managed to secure some land for himself to grow basic grains and his own coffee. Through training sessions and a loan for fertilizer through Union MicroFinanza Francis is able to reap larger and higher quality harvests. The problems that face his community are tremendous: El Aquila has no constant supply of water in the town and even though neighboring towns have electricity, Francis’ community does not. While in Honduras Uncommon Grounds visited Francis and told him personally that they would be purchasing his coffee harvest.

We will be traveling with Union MicroFinanza whose mission is to improve the economic capacity of impoverished rural communities by developing and applying the most advanced procedures and technology in microfinance.  Since the coffee industry is the basis of most income in the area, this trip will focus mainly on the coffee and culture that surrounds it.  The goals of this trip will be to better understand what takes place in coffee producing countries, to understand how this affects the growers of La Union and the surrounding villages, and to examine how this process can be changed to benefit the farmers.

Trip Highlights include:

-a morning of coffee picking, tour of La Union, explanation and tour from seed to harvest, tour of villages, trip to processing facility, meals at local residencies

If you would like more information or are interested in joining us on this trip email Guy at uncommon1@accn.org or Casey at caseyboeve@yahoo.com

The deadline to sign up for the Honduras trip in December 1, 2010

Finca Matala has the perfect ingredients for growing exceptional coffee—soil, altitude and climate.  The coffee is grown at an altitude of 4000-4700′ and is shade grown and organic.  The tree types are Bourbon and Pacamara varietals.  The coffee is harvested between mid-November and February and is processed locally using the wet hulled method.  The hard work of our partners allows you to experience a cup of coffee that symolizes the diligence, labor and commitment that our partners have with us.

In the late 1990′s after the El Salvadorian Civil War, the El Salvadorian government gave each of the 186 families that compose Finca Matala a manzana (approximatly 3 acres) of land as a reparation from the war.  The growers live in villages in and around Finca Matala.  There are 30 seperate villages consisting of between 15 and 70 families.  Families are large and many have more than 10 children.  They live in one-room homes, which have no running water or electricty.  The are makeshift consisting of sticks and corrogated steel with dirt floors.  Despite living in conditions we in the U.S. would consider substandard, the people are very happy.  They are hard workers and family is very important.  They take great pride in their work.  This pride carries over to all facets of their life.  During the harvest season they work from sunrise to sunset.  The whole family participates in harvesting the coffee cherries.  Harvesting requires climbing steep mountainsides to reach the trees and filling their wicker baskets with only the best cherries.

The quality of the coffee is unparralleled.  We invite you to share in this experience.