Our friends at Ombligo de Luna are bringing us a very special 69-kilo lot of black honey-processed Catuai-Anacafe 14 mix by an excellent producer, Luz Maria Colorado Hernandez. Bold sweetness and a sticky mouthfeel, along with notes of muscovado sugar, floral lychee, juicy honeydew, and pineapple, guarantee that this coffee won't leave anyone cold. 
 
Filter coffee:
Bold-bodied and round, this cup offers a lot of muscovado sweetness with bright notes of honeydew, lychee, and coconut creaminess.
 
Espresso:
Intense cup with gooey dark brown sugar paired with a juicy fruit salad.
 
Cappuccino/Flat white:
Creamy Piña Colada with tropical florals.
 
The Producer:
Luz Maria Reina Colorado Hernández lives in Rincón Toningo​. She's had her coffee farm for a long time, but she used to sell all her coffee to commodity markets as cherry and wasn't really interested in working with coffee. After she joined the Ombligo de Luna project, she started learning more about coffee cultivation and processing in the courses organized by the project, which sparked an interest in her. These training courses have inspired many of the producers to aim for higher-quality coffees. As Luz Maria says, '​When one learns more, one becomes more excited and interested.'
 
Luz Maria​'s production is still very small. This year, the bag Populus bought was her entire production. She is very motivated to increase these amounts in the future, but with this level of concentration on quality, it takes time. 
 
"Working with specialty coffee is hard, but the work is more interesting, and the income is higher than with the conventional coffee, so we feel more motivated and that our work is valued."
 
​Black honey processing is a step between natural and standard honey processing, with most of the mucilage still intact. ​I​t is ​a complex, laborious​, and expensive way to produce green coffee, but it results in a rich-bodied, flavourful coffee. Farmers start by picking only the ripest cherries from the trees​​. ​These cherries contain a high amount of sugar and acids​, which are essential for fermenting.​ If the beans are dried too quickly​, the flavors from the mucilage won’t be absorbed​, and if the beans are dried too slowly​, there is a chance of over-fermentation​, where the beans might become moldy.​ Drying times can be double as long compared to white honey processing.