Honduran Morning Coffee
Over two decades ago, I spent two memorable years with the Peace Corps, bringing potable water to my community, high in the lush, coffee-producing sector of Western Honduras. At the time of my service, the regional agriculture was monoculture, with coffee predominating and with the occasional intercropping of banana plants. Life in my town revolved around coffee with the busiest time of year being la temporada or the harvest. During this season, I was given a taste of rural life as I was invited by some finca owners to pick coffee alongside farmhands. They strapped a large vinyl sack around my waist and a smaller one over my shoulder. I was instructed to tickle the red, fleshy berries to coax them to fall into my hands and into the waist sack. The dry berries were sorted into the shoulder sack as they commanded a lesser value. At the end of the day, my bag was weighed, and a typical worker picked around 100 pounds of coffee. During la temporada, money was more available, but in some cases, it was not rationed for drier periods and workers might pledge workdays to finca owners to feed their families. Prior to Honduras, I didn’t drink coffee, even with the many all-nighters in college. However, all that changed with my service. You see, whenever I made a visit to a household for work reasons, I was typically offered a cup of coffee as a sign of hospitality. Since it was culturally offensive to turn down an offering, I acquired a taste for the unique way Hondurans make coffee. Here I try to recreate my own version of this staple from memory, consistent with the coffee I grew to love in rural Honduras.
Ingredients
- 4 T. dark roast Marcala, Honduran coffee grounds. See note on sourcing at bottom of page.
- 2 ¾ cup water (I fill the water receptacle on my machine to 4)
- 4 T. or to taste whole allspice. See note on sourcing.
- 2 T. or to taste turbinado sugar.
Directions
- Step 1 To begin, grind your beans if they’re whole. I recommend you buy whole beans as they make a fresher cup of coffee. I’ve been happy with my OXO Brew Conical Burr Electric Coffee Bean Grinder, available on Amazon. For drip, I set my grinder to 6-7 for a finer, stronger brew for 10 seconds. Then, place a liner in your coffee pot, if using, and spoon 4 T. of grounds into the liner. Note: I use 1 T. of grounds per 1 water line on my coffee pot. Adjust to your taste for a stronger or weaker brew. Also, there’s no correlation, 4 lines on my coffee pot equals 2 ¾ cup water. Pour 2 ¾ cups water into your pot for 2 cups of coffee.
- Step 2 Then, add 4 T. allspice to your liner and grounds. You may need to experiment to get the right balance of coffee to allspice. 4 T. allspice will imbue a strong yet smoky flavor to your coffee, so adjust to your palate. After the coffee is brewed, pour a large cup for one person or a small cup for two people, and add 1 T. of sugar per cup and stir. Note: I found that sugar cuts the bitter edge of the dark roast coffee, so there is no need to temper it with fatty cream. This has fast become my alternative to milky lattes. But again, you may want to adapt the amount of sugar to your liking. Enjoy!
Here, the traditional cup of Joe is given a twist, with the unexpected complement of allspice and turbinado sugar. This is the customary way coffee was served when I was a Peace Corp Volunteer two decades ago in the lush, coffee-producing sector of Western Honduras.
SOURCING NOTES:
COFFEE: at a minimum, it would make a big difference to support shade-grown coffee from Marcala, Honduras. This is because I saw first hand the deforestation of countrysides and forest canopies to plant more sun-loving coffee varieties which matured faster. Sadly, I even saw how some farmers eroded the watersheds of protected areas, washing their beans in rivers that polluted the drinking water of entire communities. That was the whole reason I was sent to my town: their water was as brown as Coca Cola from the upstream washing of coffee beans. But now with climate change, even these sun-loving species are getting stressed from increased heat and are fruiting for shorter periods.
If you would like to support small farmers, please look for coffee with the mark from COMSA (Cafe Organico Marcala, S.A.). COMSA is a cooperative that was started in 2000 by local Honduran farmers who wanted to pursue organic, Fair Trade certification. Premiums return to the community and help finance vital social needs like covering teachers’ salaries and school supplies. One place that you might want to try is the roaster Red Rooster who features the COMSA dark roast organic Clive coffee for $21.25 at the time of this post. If this package is out of your price range, it won’t be the same but you can still get a good cup of coffee by substituting high quality dark French roast coffee like Peet’s French roast or Major Dickinson’s.
ALLSPICE: Also, if you are going through a lot of allspice, you might want to buy it in bulk online. You can buy a 14 oz bag of Spicy World for $15 on Amazon at the time of this post. Click here for Spicy World Allspice Whole Berries,
Nutritional Information: serving size: 1 1/3 cups, servings per recipe: 2, calories: 83, total fat: 0.3 g., saturated fat: 0 g., cholesterol: 0 g., sodium: 16 mg., total carbohydrate: 15 g., dietary fiber: 0 g., total sugars: 13 g., protein: 1.1 g., calcium: 86 mg., iron: 0.89 mg., potassium: 281 mg., magnesium: 26 mg., vitamin D: 0 IU, vitamin C: 4.7 mg., vitamin B-1: 0.1 mg., folate: 11 µg.