Honduras: La Alondra - February Pickings

This coffee is sticky toffee pudding through and through. Masses of creamy toffee up front gives way to dried fruit notes of raisins and currants on the finish and a subtle hint of ginger on the aftertaste. Add a little sprinkle of hazelnut to all that as it cools for an indulgent dessert in a mug.

This coffee comes from La Alondra, a family farm in the misty highlands of Lepaterique, Honduras - and we've managed to source something a bit special from them this year! We've got three lots from the same trees, same varietals, same washed processing, but picked a month apart. It's a rare chance to taste how timing shapes flavour. This is the February picking, we'll also be releasing January (all chocolate orange with a dried fruit sweetness) and March (creamy milk chocolate with a gentle fruit finish) over the coming months, so you can follow the harvest and taste the difference for yourself.

The story of how we came to buy from La Alondra is one of Roland’s favourites. Roland got to know Alejandro, and his older brother Miguel who runs the farm, while Alejandro was working on his Masters in Business. During Covid he reached out to Roland for an interview to discuss green coffee buying and they had a lovely long discussion for his thesis. When Roland asked why he was interested in the coffee business specifically, Alejandro replied that he’s Honduran and his family have a coffee farm - obviously Roland followed up that he’d love to taste their coffee! After securing a sample and finding that it was really tasty, we wanted the coffee but weren’t sure how we were going to source it.

Fast forward a short time, Langdon Coffee Merchants were hosting some visiting Honduran exporters and producers at our Emma Street eatery. Roland was coincidentally in London that day, so he joined them for lunch. One of those visitors happened to be Benjamín Paz Muñoz (of La Orquidea fame) and they got on like a house on fire. He had immediately noticed our coffees from the Mierisch Family on the shelves, as it turned out Wingo and Benjamin are good friends – a good tick for both parties! 

A couple weeks later, at London Coffee Festival, Roland met up with Alejandro and mentioned that he’d met another Honduran coffee producer recently, this chap called Benjamín. Alejandro said no way, Benjamín’s my brother’s friend and he’s who exports our coffee! This is the moment where everything comes together. Roland went back to Langdon Coffee Merchants and linked everything up - Benjamín’s exporting the coffee for la Alondra, we want the coffee, they helped us import Alejandro’s coffee to the UK, and we decided to snag some from Benjamín too! Coffee really is all about relationships, and those connections and friendships you make across the industry can make wonderful things happen.

La Alondra belongs to Jose Hernán Giron, but he's now passed running the farm onto his son, Miguel, with input from his 3 brothers. The farm surrounds the family home and is in an area which has a lot of mist and cooler weather. The farm is heavily forested with native trees, including tall conifers on the higher parts where the farm looks out across the valley. The large amount of shade and shortage of labour has meant a lot of the coffee plants grow tall - even the Villa Sarchi, which is considered a dwarf varietal. Around half the plants on the farm are about 30 years old, with others planted in the intervening years to slowly renovate and improve the farm. The farm is mostly planted with Villa Sarchi (from Costa Rica) and Caturra (from Guatemala), with small amounts of Bourbon, Catuai and Maracaturra. The farm has a wet mill area above the house where coffee is processed before being dried and sent to San Vincente for dry milling and export.

Last year, after all the pickings had been delivered from the farm to San Vincente in February and March, they kept them all separate for us to taste. We found that there was great consistency in quality. Although they were uniformly good, we noticed the flavour profile shift slightly as the harvest went on, so we decided to keep the coffees split up and form two lots - one from the February pickings and one from March pickings. We’ve continued that approach with this year’s products and have the separated February 2025 picking here for you to enjoy. This kind of lot separation takes extra effort at every stage - from the family keeping each picking distinct, to their dry mill processing them individually, to us cupping through each one separately. Most farms tend to blend separate pickings together, but we're really glad for this opportunity to taste what happens when one doesn't.

• Country: Honduras
• Department: Francisco Morazán
• Municipality: Lepaterique
  
• Village: Piedra Rayada
• Producer: José Hernán Girón
• Farm: La Alondra
• Altitude: 1,700 m.a.s.l.
• Picked: January 2025
• Varietal: Caturra, Catuai & Villa Sarchi
• Process: Washed

Medium Dark

We take this one nice and steady through first crack and right through the development phase, finishing just as we hear the first gentle pops of second crack. It's a deliberate approach that gives the sugars plenty of time to caramelise without rushing things.

This roast level is where all that sticky toffee magic happens. The extended development brings out those deep, creamy toffee notes and builds the body that makes this coffee feel so indulgent. We're pushing just dark enough to coax out rich, dessert-like sweetness and that lovely hazelnut character on the back end, while still keeping the dried fruit notes from disappearing entirely. It's that sweet spot where caramelisation meets complexity - dark enough to feel like a proper treat, but not so dark that you lose what makes this coffee from La Alondra special.

Tasting Notes: Sticky toffee pudding, hazelnut.

Cup of Excellence Cupping Scores

• Clean cup: 6/8
• Sweetness: 6.5/8
• Acidity: 6/8
• Mouthfeel: 6.5/8
• Flavour: 6.5/8
• Aftertaste: 6/8
• Balance: 6.5/8
• Overall: 7/8
• Correction: +36
• Total: 87/100

If you would like to find out more about how we score coffees, make sure to read our blog post "What Do Coffee Cuppings Scores Actually Mean?" by clicking here.

Our coffee is roasted fresh and ships quickly – which means it might arrive a little lively. Here's the thing: freshly roasted beans are still busy releasing carbon dioxide (a natural byproduct of roasting), and all that activity can make your brew taste a bit sharp or unsettled.

Give it a few days to calm down and something lovely happens. Those brighter, edgier notes mellow out, sweetness develops, and the flavours you're actually after can really come into focus.

We recommend resting your coffee for at least 5-7 days from the roast date on the bag before brewing. A little patience goes a long way.

That said, this is just what we've found works best – not a rule. If you can't wait, we completely understand. Tuck in whenever you like.