Honduras Katia Duke San Isidro Washed

This is Happ’s third year purchasing this same lot of coffee from Katia Duke’s Finca San Isidro. We are excited and honored to share this coffee and its story with you all. Katia Duke’s Washed Catuai from Finca San Isidro is more than just a delicious cup - it’s the result of a deep-rooted family tradition and a journey of resilience.

This coffee is named for Katia Duke’s farm (finca), called San Isidro, found fifteen minutes outside the ancient town of Ruinas de Copán in Honduras. The farm has been in Katia’s family for four generations, producing coffee as a way of life and selling it in parchment form (dried green coffee that has not yet gone through the dry milling process) to local intermediaries.

Katia spent most of her youth on the farm before studying agronomy at the prestigious Zamorano Pan-American Agricultural School in San Antonio de Oriente, Francisco Morazán, Honduras. Her intention was to step into the traditional practices of her parents and family, but when the la roya leaf rust epidemic hit Honduras in 2012, destroying most of the crop that year, her plans changed course. This blow to coffee production urged Katia to reassess their family’s approach to farming, and ultimately changed the way that she and her family would think about coffee.

Katia felt she first had to better understand the specialty coffee industry. So she took various courses and became a certified barista and roaster. She opened a cafe in the town of Copan Ruinas called Cafe Ixchel, named after the Mayan moon goddess. For a while, Katia roasted and sold her father’s coffee, but eventually wanted to branch out and experiment with different varieties and processes. She asked her father for a parcel of land to begin producing her own coffees. After much discussion, she was granted 68 hectares (~168 acres) of the family’s land to farm as she saw fit. She continued to purchase coffee cherries from her father for the cafe while she honed her own farm operations. Katia built her own fermentation tanks and African drying beds on her farm so she could maintain full control of the coffee processing. 

The next step naturally became growing specialty coffee for export. Now, five years later, these growing and processing experiments have led to significant rewards. Katia’s farm maintains an exacting precision at every single stage from crop through processing and milling. Through this, Finca San Isidro has transitioned from the production of conventional coffee to specialty coffee and began a pre-selection process for the Alliance For Coffee Excellence’s “Cup of Excellence”- the most prestigious competition and award for high-quality coffees. 

Katia’s journey hasn’t been without challenges, especially in an industry dominated by men and machismo. On her first day as a producer only two people, both women, showed up to work the farm with her - everyone else refused to work for a woman. But through determination and mutual respect, she has built a strong, cohesive team at Finca San Isidro. Today, the farm is not just a workplace but a beacon of empowerment and community growth. 

Katia thinks of herself as a conduit for sharing knowledge and resources with the next generation of coffee farmers and those within her community who don’t always have access to information or education. “For me it’s very important that my community has a school. And the kids become educated. Our industry needs that. It’s about creating opportunities.” In 2014, Katia began working to build a new school for her community. After visiting the local elementary school and seeing the poor condition of the building, she insisted that her father donate land to construct a new school building. She also sought out financial support from Morning Star Missions in 2015 and they completed the new school in February 2016. Since its construction, attendance has gone up from 20 kids to 40. Hoping to continue to increase that number, Katia is working to implement a meal plan so that the school can provide nutritious meals throughout the school day. She also plans to construct a play area and design a post-primary scholarship program.

Katia has not only been able to achieve goals as a coffee producer and develop relationships with roasters, she has also been able to grow into being a leader in her community. Her commitment to education, women’s empowerment, and sustainability continues to make a lasting impact on her community. Today, Katia’s farm consists of over 180,000 coffee trees and

supports 15-20 year-round employees with up to 50 additional employees during the busy harvest season. The growth of Finca San Isidro and the surrounding area has come hand-in-hand, with flagship projects like building a school and creating and supplying a nutritional program locally. These achievements have meant more than just creating resources though - they’ve proven that in a place that can be dominated by machismo and traditionally male leadership, a woman can succeed as a leader and use coffee as the vehicle to do so. When Katia talks about the success she’s had with Finca San Isidro, it’s rarely about her own personal achievements, but rather about how those achievements can motivate and benefit others in her community. When asked what she felt was most important for us to write about, she answered that she is a successful female coffee farmer and she wants other women to know that they can be too.

About the Region

Copán is a western department of Honduras. It is a geographically mountainous area, with its main source of income being tourism to the Mayan archaeological sites, followed by the cultivation and production of coffee, tobacco and livestock.

About The Coffee

This lot of Catuai (variety) underwent a special kind of Washed processing. Katia used innovative experiments in fermentation and methods for drying cherries to create what she calls the “Microorganism Washed” process. This means that the freshly harvested cherries are depulped and dry-fermented in ceramic lined tanks for 18-24 hours. The coffee is then washed with fresh spring water to remove the remaining mucilage, then dried on either raised beds or concrete patio, depending on weather conditions. To quote Katia: "The nature of this experiment is based on the variables of temperature, fermentation times, and the addition of a 'broth of microorganisms' from our farm's mountain. In the initial stages, we rely on local bacteria and yeasts, for their metabolic processes". This unique mixture, known as 'mossto', breaks down the fruit cherry and fuels fermentations. As Katia explains, "we measure PH in intervals until it is ready for washing". Coffee is then placed on African beds to be exposed to the sun and the air flow for 25 days. The variety Catuai was developed as a cross between Mundo Novo and Caturra by the Instituto Agronomico (IAC) of Sao Paulo State in Campinas, Brazil, and was released originally in Brazil in 1949. Known for its small stature and high productivity potential, the cultivar has spread from Brazil across Central America, accounting today for nearly half of all Arabica production in Honduras.

Regional Information

Copán is one of the six major coffee growing regions in Honduras. In the northwest mountains of the country, along Honduras’ border with Guatemala, coffee in Copán is grown on farms with elevation ranges from 1000–1500 meters above sea level. The annual precipitation in Copán is 1300-2300mm per year and the temperature ranges from 11.5–22.3° C. Farms in Copán are shaded by the nitrogen-fixing Inga tree and various species of fruit and hardwood forest trees. The region has many national parks in its mountains, and coffee producers in Copán maintain harmony between the coffee plots and the natural environment.