Pedro Moreno established himself as one of Santa Barbara's earliest specialty coffee producers in 1965, farming at approximately 1600 metres in the El Cedral community before the region (Santa Barbara) achieved its current hype as a premier municipality for speciality in Honduras - nearly all down to the excellent work of the Paz family and Beneficio San Vincente. Now in his nineties, Pedro has been farming for over 60 years - and in that time, he's racked up multiple COE podium finishes - at least 9 by our count, 5 of which in the top 5 places. This lot absolutely blew us away at the cupping table when we tried offer samples - showing a really refined application of processing - we find minimal held-in-cherry flavour and maximum florals and sweetness. ## Brew Guide: Best Brewed with: Filter Lightest Roaster Influence: We've been continually refining our Gesha roasting since we moved into the Jerwood space roastery and as we get to know our Loring S35 more. We've settled on an approach that tries to maximise bean expansion without introducing off flavours, with a fast overall roast and shorter development time. It's been paying off, we think! Best Rested: 4-5 weeks Filter: Fresh - 60g/L & 95°C, with good rest we like to move down to 60g/L & 93°C Espresso: Turbo shots + 3 weeks rest. 18g/50g+ & 20s. Excellent soup coffee. We’re tasting: Intensely floral aromas - Geranium and plum blossom. In the cup it's intensely bright and sweet - with the honeyed + buttery florality of osmanthus tea, alongside apricot jam, satsuma, white nectarine and lemon verbena. As it cools, becoming more and more like yuzu curd alongside deep florals. Lots of extra sweetness from the in-cherry ferment, but exceptionally clean. ## The Story Pedro Moreno began farming coffee in 1957 in the El Cedral community of Santa Barbara, Honduras. At that time, Honduras produced approximately 500,000 bags annually and operated within the International Coffee Agreement quota system established in 1962, which maintained prices between 120-140 US cents per pound through regulatory controls. Coffee was sold as undifferentiated commodity to local intermediaries who controlled transport and market access, with no mechanism to reward quality distinctions at farmgate level. The ICA collapsed in 1989 when the United States withdrew support. Prices fell from 77 cents per pound in the early 1990s to 41 cents per pound by September 2001, representing a 91% decrease from 1997 levels and the lowest real-terms price in a century. Hurricane Mitch destroyed 70-80% of Honduras's coffee crops in October 1998, requiring two years of infrastructure rebuilding before normal production resumed. Fidel Paz founded Exportadora San Vicente in Peña Blanca in the early 1980s, following the vision of his father Catalicio Paz who had co-founded AHPROCAFE in 1967 and advocated for producer transparency and direct exporting capabilities. After Hurricane Mitch, San Vicente began exporting under its own name around 2000-2001. Arturo Paz joined approximately 2000 with cupping expertise and developed the micro-lot separation system that evaluated each producer's delivery through cupping rather than blending into bulk regional lots. Benjamin Paz joined 2008-2009 as relationship manager, building direct connections between Santa Barbara producers and international speciality roasters. The emergence of speciality coffee as a distinct market segment in consuming countries during the 1990s and early 2000s created demand for traceability, single-origin offerings, and quality-differentiated coffees that commanded premium pricing above commodity benchmarks. This represented a fundamental shift from volume-focused commodity trading to quality-focused direct relationships between producers and roasters. USDA Food for Progress programmes and TechnoServe training from 2006 onwards helped Honduran farmers develop quality-focused production skills, with participating farmers receiving average premiums of 11% over commodity prices and those competing in Cup of Excellence increasing annual earnings by 150% compared to commodity producers. Honduras launched its first Cup of Excellence competition in 2004 through IHCAFE in partnership with the Alliance for Coffee Excellence. The first competition generated $171,897 across 21 lots. The 2005 competition proved particularly significant for Santa Barbara when Natividad Benitez won first place, demonstrating that coffees from the Lake Yojoa microregion could compete at the highest international level and fundamentally changing producer awareness of their coffee's potential value. Don Pedro entered the Cup of Excellence for the first time in 2006 at age 74, after approximately 49 years of commercial commodity production. He placed 32nd with a score of 84 points, receiving $1.60 per pound. In 2008 his coffee scored 90.57 points and finished in second place, receiving $15.35 per pound - around 10x the average “C” price for coffee that year. Alliance for Coffee Excellence records note that he had heard about the quality of coffees in the area and received advice to participate in the competition. In 2009 he transitioned from commercial production to preparing speciality micro-lots with systematic processing and quality feedback support from Exportadora San Vicente. Between 2006 and 2019, Don Pedro achieved at least nine documented Cup of Excellence placements with five finishes landing in the top five positions, competing into his late eighties. Santa Barbara has won first place in ten of Honduras's twenty Cup of Excellence competitions between 2004 and 2024. The villages of El Cedral, Las Flores, and El Cielito have accumulated the majority of winning lots from the region, with El Cedral accumulating 22 Cup of Excellence wins by 2024. In 2021, seventeen of twenty-five winning lots originated from Santa Barbara, with the region's consistent competition success perhaps related to the specific microclimate of Lake Yojoa, which extends cherry maturation periods through cool mists and temperature regulation, as well as the infrastructure development centred on San Vicente's operations in Peña Blanca. Perhaps it can be said to be a virtuous circle - the infrastructure and international connections brought attention, awards and most importantly money; and that income allowed reinvestment into higher cost forms of production that allowed more awards and more attention. The Moreno family expanded from Pedro's original farm to include over 30 individual coffee producers across El Cedral's hillsides. Family members with documented Cup of Excellence placements include Evin Joel Moreno Reyes (12th place 2013, 10th place 2025), Rumaldo Moreno (12th place 2014), and Dolmin Josue Moreno Alvarado (5th place 2024 and 2025). Don Pedro currently farms approximately 9.4 hectares at 1550-1600 metres elevation, cultivating Bourbon, Pacas, SL-28, and Gesha varieties without pesticides or fertilisers. His coffee is typically fully washed, with delivery to Exportadora San Vicente's facility in Peña Blanca for quality evaluation, lot separation, and connection to international buyers like ourselves.