Miguel Pérez (CAFESMO LENCA)

In early 2026, we also expect to harvest our first Geisha beans.

I live in Gracias, a small town with colorful colonial buildings and cobblestone streets. An imposing fort towers above Gracias, left there by the Spaniards, several centuries ago. It’s a delightful town with a buzzling market, pop and mom shops on every corner, and one of the best pizza restaurants in the entire country.

But regardless of how much I love where I live, I am always happy to drive the twenty-minute ride to San Juan, where we have a cupping lab and our farm. The land is covered by trees. Pine forest, shadow trees, avocado and here and there a fruit tree.

At over 1,300 meters altitude, it’s never too hot but it also never gets cold. We are quite fortunate to be able to work in a climate that is nearly ideal year-round. That said, we face many challenges and obstacles as well. Climate change is particularly hard to deal with as weather events are by natura unpredictable and their impact can be devastating.

Labor shortage is another headache that is increasingly difficult to ignore since Covid. Most Hondurans have one or several family members who live in the US and send money back every month. It makes working the land, picking coffee, significantly less attractive than before.

It is also difficult to depend on pricing mechanism that are dictated by international structures on which we have no influence at all. Nevertheless, I have never yet felt frustrated because our family is united, hardworking, and happy.

My wife has her own small brand of roasted coffee and that allows us to make an additional income and our daughter and two sons all love to work with us as well.

My dad, who started framing coffee in 1990, passed away in 2019, and I like to think that he would be so happy to see how a third generation of young, energetic coffee farmers are being prepared to take over what he started so many years ago now.

Early 2026, we also hope to harvest our first geisha beans. It’s a very small plot that we sowed because it’s such an expensive variety and it can be fragile too. On top of that, there is not much geisha yet in Honduras, so we must learn by trial and error. But it looks like we are going to have a first batch soon and we are determined to continue to evolve our family enterprise.

Micro-lots, experimental preparations, new varieties, more roasted coffees to generate a local income, develop our brand, grow together, my wife, our children and I. Regardless of challenges and obstacles, we are filled with enthusiasm, energy and hope!