Jose Hernán Girón

Owned by Jose Girón, we first heard about La Alondra through his son Alejandro who is based in the UK. Alejandro was doing his MSc at Manchester Business School and interviewed our Green Coffee Buyer, Roland, as part of his research into the coffee business. After a very interesting and wide ranging interview, they chatted and Alejandro mentioned that his interest had come from his family being Honduran coffee producers - so of course Roland asked to taste some of their coffee!

Whilst we were looking forward to tasting the coffees, we weren't sure we'd be able to get them to the UK even if we ended up liking them. This was followed by a chance meeting with another Honduran coffee producer, Benjamin Paz. Benjamin's family runs the San Vincente mill which has produced amazing coffees (including this year's Cup of Excellence #1) and he was in London to learn more about the UK market. He came to see us and we had a great chat - we really clicked with his approach and this time we knew some of his coffees would be coming to the UK. This was just before Manchester Coffee Festival 2021 and the following week whilst there, Roland met up with Alejandro in person. It turns out that San Vincente process the coffee from the Giron family's farm, La Alondra!

With this connection, we were able to taste some samples from La Alondra's new harvest (which we loved) and arrange for them to come to the UK along with some other coffees from San Vincente. We were able to take this full circle and met up with Alejandro again at this year's Manchester Coffee Festival - this time bringing him our very first roasts of his family's coffee to enjoy.

• Country: Honduras
• Department: Francisco Morazán
• Municipality: Lepaterique
• Village: Piedra Rayada
• Producer: José Hernán Girón
• Farm: La Alondra
• Elevation: 1,700 m.a.s.l.