As a third-generation coffee farmer in the rural mountains of western Honduras, Fredy Rápalo has held true to a long-standing family tradition of agriculture – the fields he works today once belonged to his father. Fredy is our exclusive grower of Elevation coffee, and, frankly, we couldn’t be in better hands.
Few people are more passionate about their craft than this man, and it shows in every aspect of his coffee growing process. How a coffee bean is shelled, dried, and roasted affects its flavor, and Fredy is meticulous every step of the way, a fact that has led to most of his business being conducted with buyers outside of Honduras.
Care for the earth
When your goal is to fully enjoy the richness of the earth, the last thing you want to do is destroy it in the process. Fredy gets it. His aim is to leave the land as close to natural as possible. Unlike many other farms in the area, as you walk his coffee farm, you are greeted by towering old-growth trees. When expanding any portion of the farm, Fredy makes sure that standing timber remains where it’s at. This provides shade for the coffee plants, prevents erosion, and doesn’t needlessly do away with nature. “It affects the flavor of the coffee,” he says.
Instead of cutting off old plants at the ground, he trims them with enough left to allow for a new plant to regrow. This disturbs the soil less, allows the existing root structure to hold fast, and speeds up the regeneration process.
Not all coffee farmers trim and fertilize their plants, but Fredy has established it as an important part of his process. Rather than buying commercial organic fertilizers, they built chicken houses. While the chickens are sold off for food when full-grown, their manure is mixed with the hulls removed during the shelling process to formulate a truly organic mixture that’s rich in nitrates and safe for the environment. The cost of trimming and fertilizing adds about $1,000 USD per acre, but Fredy believes it is a valuable return on investment.
Care for community
As the former mayor of San Luis, Fredy is truly a man of the people, a fact readily seen when spending time with him throughout the local community. But his devotion to those around him doesn’t simply start and end with public service. As an entrepreneur, Fredy has established multiple businesses that not only provide goods and services to the residents of the area but provide jobs as well. His coffee farm alone employs 150 to 200 workers during the harvest seasons to pick the ripe beans, in addition to kitchen staff to serve the workers free meals and the cultivators who work throughout the year pruning and fertilizing the plants.
Those who work the fields during harvest are paid by the “gallon” – a woven basket that is most often tied around the worker’s waist and measured out at the end of the day. Fredy pays these workers five lempiras (Honduran currency) more per basket than any of the other farms in the area, and it is not uncommon to see entire families out working the fields together.
Fredy also owns and operates a coffee processing facility where all of the coffee from his farm is hulled, dried, and either packaged for export or sent for roasting. In addition to employing a full workforce, this facility also serves as a place where smaller farmers and individuals can bring their raw beans for processing.
We are so thankful to be partnered with Fredy and appreciate everything he does to help us bring only the best coffee to you.
