Roast Approach: Honduras Finca La Puerta Washed

Today's coffee that we are going to approach is from the small town of San Andrés in the Lempira department of Honduras.  This region of Honduras lies near the border of El Salvador.  This coffee comes from producer Ruben Portillo and his farm, Finca La Puerta.  The coffee is a combination of IH-90 and Anacafe 14 varieties.  Ruben only produces washed coffee on his farm.  He wet-mills the coffee onsite and then transports the coffee to his home where he lays the coffee out on mesh nets over front lawn to slowly dry the coffee.  The mesh nets allow for cool air to circulate through the grass and through the thin layer of coffee seeds.  It is a very slow process, but it preserves the embryo of the seed, increasing the longevity and quality of the coffee.  The coffee was harvested in February of 2026 and arrived to the U.S. in July of 2026.

Arrival QC:

The coffee arrived with a humidity reading of 10.5% and density of 1.17 g/ml.  The coffee was sample roasted and cupped upon arrival.  The arrival cupping notes highlight a coffee that is heavy bodied with strong chocolate notes and molasses sweetness.

The sample roast was preformed on an Ikawa with the roast profile that can be found on our website.

The Roaster:

For these roasts, I'll be using a Proaster 1.5 kilo drum roaster hooked up to natural gas.  Batch size is 400g, approximately 35% of roaster capacity.  I've used a small batch size on this roaster to get closer to mimicking the gas power that you might find on a larger production roaster.  It must always be mentioned that each roaster is different.  The type of probe, placement of probe, and batch size will all influence the way in which bean probe temperatures are registered in a roaster.  With that said, don't read too much into the exact temperatures, but look more closely at the theory behind the approach, time spent in different development periods, and rate of rise to get a better idea of how to translate this profile over to your own machine. 

The Goal:

This coffee is a classic washed Honduran coffee.  It is not a complex coffee full of dynamic acids and florals.  Rather, this is the kind of coffee that excels as an "every day driver."  It's the kind of coffee that is approachable both to the average coffee drinker as well as the average coffee roaster.  My goal was not to try and unlock something hidden, but rather to develop a roast that really lets the sweetness shine.  

Hopefully this will provide you with the background you need to confidently approach this coffee in your own roasting adventures.

If you would like to learn more about my four phase approach to roast profiling, check out my “Roast Approach: Roast Strategy” blog.

The Approach: 

I started this coffee with a moderate charge temperature and moderate gas application.  This is not a high density coffee that requires a slow start.  Honestly, this is a easy coffee to roast.  No special tricks are necessary to get a nice cup.  On this roast, I gradually stepped up the gas application, achieving full heat application through the end of drying and early Maillard phases.  As my goal was to highlight the coffee's natural sweetness and big body, I stepped the heat application down just prior to entering the caramelization phase at 350 degrees.  This allowed for a longer time spent in Caramelization.  This is the point in chemical reactions where sugars are increasing and acids begin to break down.  Together, these sugars and broken down acids are the precursors for development of melanoidins, which are responsible for the body and mouthfeel of a coffee.  I was able to keep the coffee at 50% heat application all the way through first crack, only needing to reduce the heat application at the end of the roast when the coffee began to become exothermic and "take off".  First crack occurred consistently at 385 degrees on my machine.  Exothermic thermal energy production started happening around 396 degrees.  To keep the coffee from getting totally out of control, I like to pull the heat application back a few degrees before I notice the coffee starting to "take off".  Once the coffee is in the exothermic (and pyrolysis) stage of roasting, it only requires small bits of heat energy application to continue through the roasting process.  I finished the roast at 402 degrees (my favorite end point for lighter roasts).  The coffee had 1:18 of post crack development time.  

I found the cup to be very sweet and juicy.  I was honestly a bit surprised by how sweet this coffee is.  Even the citric acidity was sweet with flavors of ripe Meyer lemon and candied orange.  This is the kind of coffee I could drink cup after cup of all day long.  It was sweet and balanced all the way through as the coffee cooled.  This coffee is so sweet, it might even make your "cream and sugar" coffee drinker consider switching to black coffee.

The Takeaway:

There is a reason that washed Central American coffees are a mainstay in the coffee industry.  This coffee from Finca La Puerta is really everything I could want in a washed Central.  It is incredibly easy to roast and every iteration of roast that I did with this coffee was delicious.  While it may lack some of the complexity and nuance that we often encounter in very high grown washed coffees, it has an incredible sugar profile.  I would recommend this coffee to new coffee roasters and to anyone looking for a solid base to a blend.  When I was a head roaster, I always used to say that no customer will ever complain that your coffee is too sweet.  They will complain that it is too bitter, too acidic, too floral.  But never have I heard anyone complain that a coffee is too sweet.  This is exactly the kind of coffee that I would put as the base of a blend to provide body and sweetness.  This is commonly the place in a lineup that a roaster will use Brazil, however Brazil's have a unique density that can make them difficult to use in pre-roast blends.  Sometimes, they can be a bit tricky to roast.  For this reason, I really like the idea of using a sweet, big bodied Central like this Honduran.  

Happy roasting!