Miladiz Reyes | Washed | Honduras

We first tried Miladiz's coffee at a cupping we hosted a cupping with Benjamin Paz  back in 2023. We knew we wanted to bring some in then, but it turned out to be a bit of tease, he put it on the table but it was already sold. 3 Years and a lot of pestering later, here we fucking go!

Miladiz Mejia Reyes - Regalo de Dios

Miladiz Mejía Reyes currently lives in Las Vegas, Santa Bárbara, 7 years ago she ventured into the coffee business, and she has been producing coffee for 5 years.

She worked for 20 years as an administrator in a mining company in the area, she started as a secretary and little by little she rose to become an administrator of a department of the company; During this time, to go to her work, she passed through coffee farms, which started in her a desire to have her own farm; So for a while, he prayed for that wish to be fulfilled.

In 1995, a neighbour of hers offered to sell her a 2-hectare plot of land, but at that time she did not have enough money to buy it; but 3 years later, at the insistence of her neighbour and offering her a more affordable price, she decided to collect her savings and she bought it, even though cultivated nothing at that time.

Then, another neighbour offered her a property at the same place in exchange for a 4x4 car that Miladiz and her husband had, they accepted the deal in order to increase the area of her farm. In addition, her sister gave her another plot of land at the same place, since she could not work on this property.

Miladiz saw all these opportunities as blessings and as an answer to her prayers, so 4 years ago she decided to apply for a loan at her job to start her coffee farm; At the same time, her brother-in-law offered her a Parainema coffee nursery and even offered to plant it, which motivated her to start her coffee farm. in this way, she obtained the first lot of Parainema coffee.

Lately, a couple of years ago, she became seriously ill, for which she made the difficult decision to retire from her job, but this was positive for her since it gave her the opportunity to be more attentive to the farm.

Seeing that her future depended on the coffee farm and that it is something she likes to do, she sought more information on how to improve and stand out in quality, since the farm has a great altitude.

Last year she learned about the San Vicente specialty coffee project and with the help of a neighbour she was able to prepare her first micro-lot of specialty coffee, beginning a new stage in the production of her farm looking for better markets.

 

Processing

The coffee that was picked on the farm is taken to the wet mill the same day (as she is still building her own mill, she processes it in the neighbor's mill) there she takes care of the details of the de-pulping, then the coffee is left to ferment in concrete tanks for 12 hours, and as a following step, the coffee is washed with abundant water early in the morning, it is washed 3 times until the water comes out clean, then it is dried in plastic tarps on the grass for about 8 to 10 days, during this time a selection is made by hand to remove the defective beans.

Santa Barbara

This coffee comes from El Cedral, a village in the Santa Bárbara Mountains of western Honduras. The range covers more than 120 square kilometres and rises to elevations of around 2,750 metres above sea level. Much of the area remains covered by primary forest and has been protected as a national park since 1987, limiting large-scale agricultural expansion and keeping production fragmented and largely smallholder-based.

Coffee cultivation in the region began relatively late. Indigenous and local farming communities started planting coffee in the 1940s, primarily in lower elevations and as a secondary crop alongside subsistence agriculture. It was not until the 1970s, during a period of rising global coffee prices, that coffee became the dominant cash crop. Typica and Bourbon were the most widely planted varieties, and coffee has since become both the economic backbone of these communities and a central part of their local identity.

This trajectory mirrors Honduras more broadly. As a country, Honduras emerged from Spanish colonial rule with deeply unequal land distribution and limited rural infrastructure. Through the twentieth century, agricultural policy largely favoured export crops, while smallholders absorbed most of the risk and volatility. Today, Honduras is one of the world’s largest coffee exporters, yet production remains dominated by small farms, often operating with minimal access to technical support or market feedback.

In Santa Bárbara, much of the recent improvement in quality can be traced to the work of Benjamin Paz. His involvement goes beyond buying or advising at arm’s length. Paz conducts ongoing varietal and processing experiments on his own farms, using them as test sites before sharing results, plant material, and practical guidance with neighbouring producers.

By working closely with farmers and facilitating direct feedback from visiting roasters, he helps producers connect on-farm and processing decisions to outcomes in the cup. This collaborative, iterative approach has been a key factor in the rapid rise in quality and consistency associated with Santa Bárbara coffees in recent years.