“Washed milds”. This is a term green coffee traders use to describe coffees from Central and South America that are typically clean, sweet, and relatively easy-drinking coffees. We all can fall into the trap of grouping coffees together in a way that removes what makes them special. I do it all the time. It’s easy, when speaking with a roaster I’ll generalize washed milds from Central and South America and completely forget that what makes coffee special is its specificity.
COMSA in Marcala, Honduras & Catracha Coffee in Santa Elena, Honduras are two green coffee producing groups that we should never simply all “washed milds”. Royal has been buying from COMSA for 20+ years. Royal has been supporting the Catracha Quality Project since 2012. While both groups are exemplary organizations that the world can learn a lot from, they share very little in common other than being two incredible groups in Honduras doing incredible work.
This spring, I had the chance to visit these two groups along with my colleague Laurel Wirth and an international delegation of roasters representing five different markets. In many ways, this trip has been a long way in the making.
My relationship with COMSA runs back to 2011 when I was ramping up my career in coffee working at Fair Trade USA. There are few cooperatives that embody what Fair Trade & more importantly, income diversification through Fair Trade & Organic premiums, like COMSA.
All of us here at Royal have a unique relationship with Catracha Coffee since our very own colleague, Mayra Orellana-Powell runs the group alongside her husband Lowell Powell, and her mother Eva Georgina Vásquez. Mayra wears one hat as Royal’s Director of Marketing & Outreach. She also runs her organization, sourcing & marketing green coffees from Santa Elena. We have written extensively about her microlot project on the blog and I’m thrilled to pen my entry.
What makes these two groups special?
COMSA
This is a large-scale Central American cooperative, producing 500 containers a year. Royal’s John Cossette visited the group in 2006 when they were producing four containers a year and we’ve been buying from them ever since. What sets COMSA apart can neatly be summarized by a tour of its facility. Before ever stepping foot on a coffee farm, cupping coffees, or sitting through a presentation, COMSA prefers to jump right into soil health.
While our group was thrilled to cup their coffees, we were pleasantly surprised to start the tour in their mushroom lab. COMSA distributes mushrooms to all members to help with soil health, food security, natural medicines, and income diversification. Members learn how to grow mushrooms from old corn husks.
Biodynamic and regenerative agriculture has become more and more popular. Before it had a name, COMSA was doing it. Everywhere you go around the cooperative’s facilities, you’ll see “Microorganisms are the chefs of the soil.” Soil health is coffee wealth, folks. To help producers, they have a number of different checks in place to help continue organic production and are happy to help producers get back on track. COSMA firmly believes that regenerative agriculture teaches us to feed ourselves. Their goal is to help producers grow zero-kilometer food. The closer we are to food, the cheaper and healthier it is. COMSA helps producers focus on the ever-important issue of food security ranging from chickens to cows, vegetables, precious woods, and eco-tourism.
An important point I think I often forget is just how important Organic coffee cultivation is. As consumers in the Global North, we often think of Organic as being good for “me.” For farmers anywhere in the world, we have to remember that Organic is good for the community. Is it perfect? Of course not. But please, the next time you walk into a coffee forest, look around. There is no separation between field and community, it’s one land. If you were a coffee farmer, wouldn’t you rather be surrounded by a canopy without chemical pesticides if you could? We cannot have it all and not all coffee countries can produce Organic coffee, but Honduras certainly can and COMSA is proof that you can have your cake and eat it too.
Driving around the community of Marcala, one thing that may shock you is the prevalence of trash fires on the side of the road. Centralized garbage & recycling services are luxuries and it’s easy to forget that. To help combat this issue, COMSA started a trash pick-up service and began sorting plastic bottles and other recyclables. What inspired me most was what they did with the bottles. They invested in a large industrial grinder to grind the plastic and mold it into fence-building materials. They are turning trash into building materials with an 80-year lifespan. This is something I would love to see repeated in every community.
Great story, Richard, but what about the coffee?
I knew you’d ask that. COMSA has one of the most diversified portfolios I’ve seen. They range from macro lots that are priced accordingly to fit on just about anyone’s menu all the way to Cup of Excellence lots, Gesha, and some pretty wild experimentation. We are currently expecting coffees to land this spring to Summer and have something for everyone.
One project that is of particular interest to me is the success of their Manos de Mujer lots. From a group of 360 women producers they are able to produce an impressive 22 containers of Fairtrade and Organic (FTO) Women produced coffees. Royal buys a portion of this, and I hear from our roaster clients all the time how much they appreciate being able to support smallholder female producers worlds away. Nothing is perfect, but Developmental Theory 101 will usually start with a number of books on the best way to alleviate poverty usually starts with putting more money in women’s pockets. COMSA’s Manos de Mujer project focuses on economic inclusion, empowerment, and productivity.
There are a million stories out there and just as many coffees. While I love Pink Bourbon, Gesha, Anaerobic, and everything else out there, who is building their blends this way? Why not triple down on your impact at origin and convert coffees without any story to FTO women-produced coffees? Several of my clients have shifted their buying strategies to COMSA Manos de Mujer, even if they don’t market the coffees as FTO, they feel great knowing they are doing something to better their supply chain.
Richard Sandlin
The last song I’ll sing while echoing my admiration for this cooperative is their international school. A local school was about to go under in the region, and they stepped in and took it over. They have 180 kids across 11 grades ranging from 7 months old to 17. They teach classes in English, Spanish, and French. For anyone with children, we all know how important access to education is. I wish I could say I’ve seen more school facilities like these on my travels through the Coffee Lands. Graduates of this school have worked in IT, become Doctors, Agronomists, and a whole lot more. It’s truly incredible how far a little success in coffee can go.
Special thanks to Maritza Midence of Highland Coffee who helped organize the trip and helped Royal source wonderful coffees from COMSA and others. I am so deeply grateful to the leaders and producers of COMSA for hosting, including Rodolfo Peñalba, Gerente de COMSA, his daughter and coffee producer Grasia Peñalba Rommel Melghem, COMSA’s director, Harold Sosa, Abel Molina, Alejandra Rodriguez the Lab Director, and Ronaldo Aquia the Environmental Activities Director.
Catracha Quality Project
Anyone who has met Mayra Orellana-Powell will instantly feel like they have known her their entire life. I first met Mayra at a screening of her movie, the Way Back to Yarasquin in 2013. The film centers around Mayra and her journey back to her community of Santa Elena. The scene that still sticks with me 11 years later is the roasters meeting the producers of their micro lots.
Small can also be beautiful. Catracha exists because Mayra has devoted her life to it. They export somewhere between 1-2 containers of high-quality micro-lots each year. Santa Elena is exceptionally high and for generations, many of these incredible coffees have been swept away into macro Marcala lots. While there is nothing wrong with this, it is clearly a missed opportunity. Thanks to Catracha, roasters are able to connect with exceptional coffee farmers, producing very small quantities. Typical lot sizes are between 5-15 69kg bags. What inspires me most about this project is the ability of producers and roasters to walk the same future together. We’ve seen roasters buy Catracha year after year and their customers welcome back their coffees with warm open arms.
Spending time with Mayra & her husband Lowell is a practice in fandom. I’ve known the two for a decade plus, but this was my first time joining them in their element. They are focal points in the town of Santa Elena and the region is better because of it. Everywhere you go you can see the impact of this small project. There are murals painted everywhere. You’ll find several producers with wi-fi, solar panels, raised beds, and a whole lot more. I don’t know who the mayor of Santa Elena is, but if you told me it was Mayra, I’d believe it.
Everywhere we went we were greeted with a warm hello. A small example of just how giving Mayra can be illustrated with the bag of lollipops she passed to everyone we walked by on one afternoon walk.
Lowell Powell & Mayra Orellana-Powell
While the stories of the people who lead Catracha are amazing, what makes this project is the way they have constructed every transaction. Each producer is paid well for coffee in parchment and Catracha provides a profit share at the end of the harvest. Lowell takes it one step further and has been working with roasters to provide a third payment, a common amount might be $1 per bag. On the trip, we had a few of the roasters make their third payment directly to their producer. I wish relationships like this were the norm and not the exception.
Catracha Coffee also shows us that just because something isn’t organic, doesn’t make it bad. It’s all about the details. For an organization like theirs, it might not make sense to invest in the certification. The Organic certification process is a complicated one. It can take a lot of upfront costs but can also provide a lot of impact at scale. While Organic certification is something I am a big believer in, it is not the only way. For example, we visited a reforestation project where Catracha is giving away thousands of fruit, shade, and decorative trees freely to anyone in the community. We visited the nursery where trees ranged from 6 inches to 6 feet.
For roasters passionate about FOB pricing and price transparency, Catracha has set up a partnership with BEXT360 showing each player in the chain, what they were paid, and where the funds went.
Cool story Richard, but what about the coffee?
Roasters flock to the Catracha Coffee year after year because of the specificity of the level of detail that goes into their drying. While Catracha doesn’t own a mill of its own, they have several data points they must before processing and exporting their lots. Roasters will agree, there are few coffees that they keep as well as Catracha does.
So what’s next?
We have fresh COMSA arrivals landing any day now at all quality levels. Stop reading, email your trader, and get a sample. Depending on when you read this, there may be Catracha lots available. Get in touch and let’s introduce you to your new favorite microlot!
Thank you to the roasters who joined us on this trip; I cannot wait for the next one!
Oscar’s farm in the first photo is beautiful. I am a big believer in COMSA and I agree with Richard that as long as Mayra and Lowell are at the helm, Catracha will be doing good things for Santa Elena via tasty coffees.