Irma Hernández, Finca Las Delicias and two more plots: El Barrial, El Duraznal

I’m a second generation coffee farmer and although I am getting older now, I keep working on the finca when I can.

My husband passed away in 2019, so I have a much bigger responsibility for the finca than I did before, and must also provide for myself now. Fortunately, I run a little grocery shop where I sell basic goods like water, toilet paper and rice, but I often close the shop for a few hours to work on the finca. My daughter Vanessa, who also owns one of our small fincas, and I also sometimes hire help, when it’s too much for the two of us, especially during the harvest season.

I always laughed at Vanessa when I noticed her zeal and enthusiasm for coffee, especially during the harvest season, when my husband and I let her pick some beans.  But I have to admit that when I was little, I did the same.

My parents were the first in our family to grow coffee plants. At the time, they had to water every plant individually, because there was no shade at all. Now, we have lots of trees to provide shadow, like chilindron, cuajiniquil, liquidambar and robles; trees native to our region, for which there often aren’t really any English names.

I am determined to continually improve the quality of our beans and offer micro-lots prepared with different processes. Vanessa and I are especially interested in growing long-lasting relationships with small, ambitious roasters from anywhere in the world, and I already work with a roaster in the Netherlands, and another in Australia.

When we are partners over a longer period of time, we can slowly fine-tune our lots in accordance with a roaster’s preferences and, together, prepare coffees that are ideally adapted to the pallets of our end-consumers.

Farm facts

Our farm is close to 7 hectares, divided over three smaller lots that are near one another, all located around 1,300 meters. We grow Lempira, Paca, Parainema, 90 and have lots of shadow from native trees like like chilindron, cuajiniquil, liquidambar and robles.

We also have orange trees, which, apart from providing shadow, imbue a zest of citric flavor to the surrounding coffee plants.

Our farm is FTO certified.

This farm is Rain Forest Alliance certified.