The Honduras Armando Pineda is this fortnight's Fresh Crop coffee feature. Raaimi from Padre Coffee HQ shares her recipes for both filter and espresso below for this fortnight's Fresh Crop Exclusive!
The most recent addition to our menu is Honduras Armando Pineda. When this coffee landed on the cupping table, it was an instant favourite.
The creamy body and delicate balance of chocolate and fruit quickly won us over. Not to mention the orange acidity, which is always delicious to brighten a cup. 
After doing some research on coffee from Honduras and taking myself on a little Google map tour, I was surprised by the diverse landscape in Honduras, particularly where this coffee is grown.
Armando's farm is located near a town called Las Vegas between lake Yojoa and the Santa Barbara Mountain, with the coffee sitting at 1560 masl. It is a fertile area in the Opalaca growing region. The cool temperature of the area shelters the coffee cherries from extreme heat, allowing them to mature and develop slowly.
Armando takes close care of his coffee crop. He hand-picks the cherries during the harvesting period, from November to February. For this particular lot, Armando chose the washed processing method. Unripe cherries are first removed and pulped before being put through a fermentation process. They are then washed and spread out to dry.
Specialty Coffee has been around in Honduras for over 20 years. It used to grow for commercial plantations and some specialty coffee. However, only in the past 10 years, it has been able to produce high-quality specialty lots that are traceable to individual producers or processing stations.
In saying that, in the last few years, climate change and weather pattern changes have impacted the country dramatically. These new changes lead to a disease spreading called leaf rust, which eats the crops' leaves. This outbreak wiped out many farms, and the effects are still felt there today.
The last coffee from Honduras that I tasted was a feature in our Wild Child Organic blend. I thought it was super interesting that to help the soil and growth of the coffee plants, leaves, soil, and microbes from the nearby forests are collected and made into organic fertilizers. Fun fact!
Though this coffee is not organic, knowing where it came from is just as appreciated.
When made as an espresso or long black, you taste beautiful sweet notes of toffee, chocolate, and praline balanced and brightened up with apricot and red fruits With low orange acidity and a full-bodied texture it tastes incredible with milk!
On filter, you can taste the same notes in a slightly different way as it’s been roasted a little lighter. On the first sip, the chocolate and toffee flavours stand out. As the cup cools, the acidity and fruit notes start to develop.
The coffee is well-balanced and juicy, a coffee I could drink and appreciate all day!
FILTER RECIPE
METHOD
Fill your stove top kettle with filtered water, on a medium to low flame to get a gentle simmer going. While the water is heating, weight your coffee beans and grind them on medium coarse setting (approximately 7.5 on Ditting grinder).
Fold the One Cup Filter Paper at the crease and place it in the V60 cone.
Gently saturate the filter paper and let the water drain out to get rid of any papery flavours that can interfere with your extraction.
Tare your scale, get your timer ready, and now you’re ready to brew!
STEP BY STEP GUIDE
00:00
Commence brewing the coffee by adding the ground beans into the V60 vessel. Delicately shake the ground beans to create a flat bed.
Pour 50g of the water in a circular motion starting from the centre and spiralling outwards to start the bloom process. When doing this at home you will notice that the bed will start bubbling and foaming. This is the gas releasing from the beans.
00:30
Wait one minute to allow your coffee to bloom and infuse properly.
01:30
Keep pouring the same way as before until you reach 250g.
02:30-02:45
Here you can give the V60 a gentle shake to check on the evenness of the extraction and make sure that there are no big channels where water is siphoning quicker than other areas of the bed. Finish pouring that last 80g of filtered water.
Wait until the last of the water has come through the filter and you are done!
ESPRESSO RECIPE
Domestic espresso recipe (using a Breville Bambino)
On the Slayer LP we use 22g of coffee and aim for a yield of 36g, however your machine and set up will determine what dose (and therefore, yield) you should aim for. Some domestic machines have 20-22g baskets, however some will only be able to hold 16-18g. Use the ratio to adjust the espresso recipe.
Padre Coffee acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and their continued connections to land, sea and community.
We pay our respect to Elders past, present and future, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
