Honduras 2026 Origin Trip: Meet Our Producers!
At the end of February, we led a fantastic trip to visit our direct relationship producers in Honduras. Accompanying us were two of our all-star baristas—Jessie and Shelby, each of whom has been in coffee now for going on 8 years—and two leaders from a church here in Cincinnati, who now source 50% of their coffee through relationships we maintain in Honduras. As details are fresh in my mind, and as these relationships are at the heart of our approach to sourcing coffee, I thought it a good idea to update you on our visits to the producers we buy from there.
Last year, we roasted 85,000 pounds of coffee that was sourced from people we are now working with directly. That accounted for 82% of all the coffee we roasted in 2025. I was honestly a bit surprised that the percentage has now crept up as high as it has—I thought we were closer to 70%. This means our direct relationship coffees not only include all the blue labeled coffees we sell, but all of Tandem Espresso and nearly 100% of all our red labeled blends.
When we use the term “direct relationship” or refer to sourcing directly from producers, we mean that we are in direct communication with them to establish which coffees we want and in what volumes, as well as what pricing will be a win-win for both of us for those coffees. Once that is agreed upon and samples are sent and vetted, we then place everything into the capable hands of our importing partners and handsomely pay them to move the coffee from points A to B. By working this way, we get the benefit of making decisions directly with the producers, but avoid the risky and laborious business of the logistics of importing an agricultural product.
I should also add that, historically, we have waited to place a blue label on a coffee and call it “direct relationship” until we believed we had spent enough time with a producer for them to consider us their friend. With that said, let me update you on some of our Honduran friends.
Gabriel Leiva
Gabriel Leiva lives high up on Santa Barbara mountain in a tiny village overlooking Lake Yajoa. His farm is not much more than a hectare (2.4 acres) and he produces between 5-10 sacks of coffee per year depending on yield. For the past 4 years, we have purchased all or nearly all of his coffee. He is a sweet and gentle man who beamed with joy and pride as he walked us around the farm. He picked fruit everywhere we went and offered it to us. Along the way we met his father and nephew, his brother, and eventually his mother. The entire family lives in several homes all within several feet of each other. As we stood talking and eating fruit, the sights and sounds of small mountain village life in Central America were all around us. The roosters, the distant motorbikes making their way up the mountain, the children playing, the gentle tapping of car horns as trucks make their way by and signal “hello,” the music coming from homes that’s just in range enough to make out exactly what it is—all these sounds combine to produce a backdrop that has become synonymous to me with sourcing coffee.
Gabriel and his family represent 70% of all coffee producers in Honduras—small, not really producing an exportable amount of coffee, but so vital to the supply chain and the economy. Gabriel’s coffee is found in most of our Seasonal Blends and is released once annually as a Single Origin. We were able to present him with a few bags of the current coffee we have of his (it will be available soon) and he was so excited.
Benjamin Paz
Benjamin Paz’s life has been quite the opposite of Gabriel’s in many respects. He came to the States in his early 20s and learned English and worked in coffee in the Bay Area before heading back to his family’s exporting business. There he began facilitating relationships between the world’s best coffee roasters and smallholder producers like Gabriel. The result has been life-changing for many producers and Ben is widely known and revered in the world of specialty coffee. In his early 30s, he planted his first of two farms and then went on to be a two-time first place winner of the Cup of Excellence competition in 2022 and 2024.
We began visiting Benjamin back in 2017. Since then we have been buying coffee through him (e.g., Gabriel’s coffee comes through his connection) and then eventually began purchasing some of the coffee from his own farms in 2023. His coffee can regularly be found on the offering sheets of the world’s top roasters—Onyx, Proud Mary, and Black White, to name a few. What we love about Ben is his insatiable goofiness and down-to-earth genuineness. Spending time with him and his team of Raul, Gustavo, Ramone, and Ariel produces one laugh after another, in the best of ways; the kind you wish you could have more of in your life. At this point in his life, Ben could work anywhere he wanted in coffee. But he chooses to stay in Pena Blanca where he has invested in creating good jobs and careers for other young people (e.g., he started a cafe and a pizzeria that could stand up to any here in the States, as well as a roasting company that produces 200K pounds per month...not even kidding). But his hospitality, his genuine interest in us as people, and his love for those around him keep us coming back. We are currently roasting a honey processed pacas variety he produces on his Finca La Orquidea, which, if you have not tried it, I highly recommend you get a bag.
Marysabel Caballero and Moises Herrera
Marysabel and Moises Herrera are a powerhouse couple in Honduran coffee. It was Marysabel’s father who was the first farmer to export specialty grade coffee to Intelligentsia Coffee Roasters in 2004, and they have been working with them ever since. Along the way, other notable coffee luminaries became buyers—Tim Wendelboe of Oslo, Norway among them. Their farm Finca El Puente is world renowned.
Three years ago, I ended up sitting around the table in their home not knowing any of that. A mutual friend, Christian LeSage—who exports most of the coffee we buy from Honduras—invited me to join him “at his friend’s house” for dinner; and what an amazing dinner it was! The setting, the hospitality, the stories, the laughter ,and even the tears. It will be fondly remembered as one of the most memorable nights of my life! That night I met a dear couple, and our hearts were immediately knit together. This year I finally got Emily there to spend time with them.
For three days we had the best times. We visited their farm Finca El Puente, their Beneficio and dry mill, cupped samples of coffees on offer, worshiped with them at their church, and enjoyed delicious meals at their home. We left with full hearts and new indoor/outdoor home goals from seeing the lovely way in which Marysabel has set up their living areas. On the last day, the photo above was snapped. I will allow the “1000 words” represented in this photo to tell the rest of the story of our time together. Look for their coffee later this year!
Christian LeSage
Christian LeSage is one of those people whose name will not show up on many folks' Instagram feeds or websites. Yet, he and his exporting company are nearly indispensable to Honduran producers and hundreds of roasters around the world. He founded and runs Bon Cafe, one of the largest exporting companies in all of Honduras, and exports coffee to roasters at every level of the supply chain—think McDonald’s, Dunkin, Starbucks, Stumptown, Counter Culture, Tim Wendelboe, Carabello, etc. While we met Christian back in 2017, we did not begin sourcing coffee through him until the COVID pandemic when we made the decision to begin bringing in a coffee he produces called La Navi.
The first thing you realize when meeting Christian is that he has a very sweet and quiet demeanor. He has a beautiful kindness and quiet confidence about him, and he quickly wants to know about you. You also realize he is perfectly fluent in English and incredibly smart (educated in the USA, he holds a master’s degree from Tulane). He is a family man who LOVES coffee, owning both the exporting business as well as a roasting company in Honduras.
La Navi is what we call a workhorse blender in our industry. It can stand alone, but it is also the kind of coffee that works well with others and creates the base of a solid blend. Christian creates it by going into communities, buying 100% of producers’ coffees post-harvest, using his wet and dry mills to prepare the coffee for exportation, and then doing all the quality sorting necessary to sell everything those producers make, from the highest to the lowest quality. La Navi sits solidly in the specialty range, scoring 84 points and having a lovely sweetness that majors on orange, caramel, apple, and milk chocolate. The body is pleasing and the acidity is mild.
The key to his approach is that he buys 100% of what a producer grows. This is so vital for producers as they end up with no worries as to who they are going to sell their coffee to. Selling ALL of their coffee is a producer's #1 goal. Coffee is money, and even the lowest quality level is important to sell, even if it is sold below the cost of production. Christian’s approach means that the producer will get paid accordingly for all the different quality levels they may deliver in a given harvest. Each delivery is tracked and all of the coffees coming in are separated by screen size, density, and quality levels. Then the coffee is roasted, scored, and given a price that he and the producer have agreed upon.
We love Christian and we love this approach to sourcing! La Navi has become a key component in our Staple Blend program, with it accounting for between 40-60% in Tres Fincas, Tandem Espresso, Jeff Ruby’s, and Addicting Liquid. We also roast and sell La Navi as a Single Origin to many of our wholesale customers.
Wrapping It Up
Our Instagram and Facebook feeds are full of reels and photos from this trip! If you have yet to check them out, pop on over to enjoy more than what we can share here. Plus, be on the lookout for coffees from these producers throughout 2026!
[Edited/Formatted by Sarah Cooney]