(Thank you Raul Hawitt for all the great pictures).

Honduras is building an image as a serious supplier of specialty coffee. The country is a small giant in the world of coffee production; in the year 2000 Honduras ranked tenth in volume output in the world.
I have been hired by Fintrac (www.fintrac.com), an organization funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to assist in the development of Honduran specialty coffee. My first trip to the country (January 2002) served two primary goals: to teach 36 aspiring Honduran cuppers in the elements of sensory evaluation and also to review 120+ samples of specialty coffee.
First, let's give you some information about the country.

Honduras is locked in between three -for specialty coffee- well known countries: El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala.
As you might know, Nicaragua had last year its first Cup of Excellence program (I was a judge there).
Guatemala has had various of these competitions. Both these countries have superb producing regions that border on the Honduran frontier. In Nicaragua this is the Segovia district and in Guatemala this is the Copan area.