Rob at 1,700 meters near El Cedral, Santa Barbara.

We have been sourcing quality high grown coffees from these areas for about as long as we’ve been roasting but the entire team has been eager to build a true “relationship” coffee line that we can be proud of. I flew into Tegucigalpa with hopes that I could get to meet some of the producers and learn more about the ways that they ensure cup quality year over year. If all went to plan, I was hoping to cup some of the best coffees Honduras had to offer and maybe begin a long-term relationship with a farmer that would grow over time.

Don Mario Perez Manuelez schooling us at his farm "Las Cascabeles" in Marcala.

Suffice it to say that the trip exceeded my wildest expectations. Anyone who has been to Central America can tell you how beautiful the landscape is (though I would argue that it doesn’t get much more breathtaking than the view from the coffee farms in Santa Barbara, over a mile high and framed by a picturesque lake.) But what really made the trip worthwhile was how welcoming the producers were and how willing to answer questions about their craft. Even better, they really seem to grasp the importance of their role in cup quality. Their commitment to improving every year is evident, from the pickers to the sorters to the workers at the wet and dry mills all the way to the exporter.

The view from Finca La Galera in Santa Barbara, 1,600 meters up.

So much effort is put into each precious burlap sack that we can’t help but show the coffee the same respect that the producers have. I am very excited to say that in a matter of weeks we will be roasting a very special Micro Lot from Gerrado Penalba’s “Finca Las Flores”, our first true relationship coffee. We can’t wait to hear your reviews and even better, to be able to tell him how much you enjoyed his hard work when we see him again.

It worked for Julie & Julia.

So, allow me to do some introductions. So while we’re on the subject, I’m Jacob Ford. I run our little website here. The site’s name is currently Fina Tey, but that often changes. Recently, it seemed like a lot of us around here were starting to burst into sudden fits of verbal bloggage. It was starting to get out of hand, so it just seemed like the right time to program a blog so that we could bring those outbursts directly to you, our valued customer.

So how does it all work? Well, it looks like you’re on the right track. All you have to do to see the lastest little surprise parties of amazingness known as our blog posts is go to onevillagecoffee.com/blog, sit back, and commence the smiles. All of us around here will be contributing to the blog, some on a more regular basis. So every post will display the name of the author right below the title. See it up there? If you want to see more posts by a certain author, just click that name up there or find it over on the left. “But,” you ask, “what if I am interested in posts about your lastest coffee roasting adventures, but I’m allergic to clicking on and digging through both Woody and Nelson’s posts separately?” Great question. Just for you, we’ve created categories. They let you read all the posts which are, say, Roaster Ramblings, so you don’t need to dig through a bunch of posts to get right to the good stuff. We’ll also have categories for road trips, local events, and possibly even our upcoming One Village Skydiving Experience. Just like with the authors, you can find all those categories over there on the left.

One more thing. Let’s say you want to send a friend a link to one of our blog posts? Well that’s just dandy! But here’s the problem. If you just send them a link to the blog, the post you wanted them to read will keep getting pushed back as new ones come. So, to get what’s called a permalink to one specific blog post, just click the post’s title and send anyone a link to that page. It will always go to and only to the post you see.

So let’s review. onevillagecoffee.com/blog will always show every posts. You can filter them by author or by category. And you can get a link to one specific post if you want. Any questions or other ideas? Let me know! It’s jacob, followed by one of those cool As with a circle around it, then onevillagecoffee.com.

Looking forward to a glorious bloggy horizon.