Carlos Rivera, Farm Las Mataras

At the start as well as at the end of each day, Carlos likes to sip a coffee at one of the three coffeeshops he owns with his wife and two sons.

Life wasn’t always so focused around coffee. Carlos’s wife Soraya is the third generation of a coffee growing family, but only long after she and Carlos were married, did they decide to start cultivating coffee as well.

It didn’t take long for the couple to fall in love with their new way of life and as often happens when you feel a strong affinity with the things that you do or make, both Carlos and Yessenia as well as their coffees grew to higher levels every year. When they felt ready, they decided it was time to start sharing their love for their beans with the wider community. 

That’s how the first ‘Espresso Latino’ coffeeshop was born in 2014; the name a thinly veiled wink to Honduras’ largest national coffeeshop chain, which is called ‘Espresso Americano’. While obviously much smaller, ‘Espresso Latino’ serves a much higher quality cup of coffee, with 100% traceability to each of the Rivera family’s own coffee plots and varietals.

When he was a young adult, Carlos Rivera junior, born in 1996, also became involved in the family business, mostly working on drying and processing small lots of carefully picked beans. Little by little, he learned how to prepare balanced, rich micro-lots from single varieties that he selected from his parents’ finca. 

In 2018, Carlos junior won the gold medal for our region – Oro de Ocotepeque – and that’s when things once more took a turn for the better. The anaerobic lot that was cupped at 89, brought some additional fame and solidified the family’s reputation as a reliable provider of great beans. 

The time was ripe to open a second branch of Espresso Latino, which also provided Soraya with the perfect opportunity to further develop her love for all things sweet. She started to develop the pastry, breakfast and lunch menus for the two coffeeshops, while Carlos Senior continued to focus on running the fincas, and Carlos Junior on improving his preparation skills with every new harvest that came along.

The quality of course doesn’t depend solely on Carlos’s preparation skills. It all starts at the roots, literally: how and where are the coffee plants grown, when exactly are the ripest beans picked and selected, how are they dried? This is why the family relies on stable, long-term relationships with a group of workers who have come back every season for eight to ten years now. 

They work under better conditions than most in the field and are appreciated for their skills. Pickers are invited to Espresso Latino for small tasting events. It helps them understand why it is so important to only pick the ripest beans for high quality micro-lots, and they too become more enthusiastic about their jobs when they know – and are able to taste – the rewards that their efforts bring.

The pandemic hit hard on the Rivera family. The price for coffee on the international market was unbearably low, the two coffeeshops had to be closed for endless months, and there seemed to be no light at the end of the tunnel. Until prices for coffee started to rise and the coffeeshops were allowed to open again.

In January 2022 the third branch of ‘Espresso Latino’ was inaugurated and the three coffeeshops now offer stable jobs to twelve local employees. There are plans for expansion in nearby towns as well. 

And when the 2022 harvest was finished (March), Daniel Horbat, the World Cup Tasters Champion of 2019, bought two small lots that Carlos junior had prepared for his roastery SUMO in Ireland. This will certainly further contribute to a bright future for Finca Las Mataras and the Rivera family!

Farm facts

11 hectares at 1420 to 1480 meters.

Lots of shade from natural pine forest. Also banana, orange trees.

Red and yellow Catuaí, Catimor, Pacamara, Parainema.

Certified Organic, Fair Trade, RFA