Cielito Lindo

Cielito Lindo

Cielito Lindo is from the highest part of the farm finca Nacimiento. This Ihcafe 90 coffee produces a coffee with a distinct fruity cup profile. Expect flavours of red berries, herbs and cacao nibs.

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About this coffee

Cultivar: Ihcafe 90

Flavour notes: Forest berries, herbal & cacao nibs

Producer: Jobneel Caceres Dios
Country: Honduras
Region: El Cielito, Santa Barbara
Process: Washed
Harvest date: April – May 2025

More about the cultivar

The Ihcafe 90 cultivar is a hybrid cultivar which is a cross between Timor Hybrid and Caturra. It is a selection made by Instituto Hondureño del Café (IHCAFE) hence the name Ihcafe 90.

Although it has been considered a leaf rust resistent cultivar for many years, in recent years IHCAFE 90 has been confirmed  to be susceptible to coffee leaf rust in Honduras and is also highly susceptible to the fungal attack called Ojo de Gallo.

In general, most coffee buyers and scientists agree that the quality potential in high altitudes for this cultivar is very low. But there are always exceptions to the rule and at Cielito Lindo this cultivar is producing some remarkable coffees. In fact it has been top 10 in the Honduran Cup of Excellence several times and we even won the Nordic Roaster Competition with this coffee in 2019.

How the coffee was produced

Picking

  • The coffee is selectively hand picked by hired pickers under supervision of Jobneel.

De-pulping and removing mucilage

  • The ripe cherries are de-pulped in the afternoon and the coffee beans with the parchment layer and mucilage on is transported to a cement tank.

Dry fermentation

  • The parchment coffee, still with all the mucilage left on, is dry-fermented in an open cement tank for about 24 hours.

Washing and grading:

  • After fermentation the coffee is transported to the farm house by mules. Once it arrives at the farm house the mucilage is washed off the parchment coffee and the coffee is graded in a washing channel where the floaters (light coffee beans)  are removed.

Drying

  • The coffee is bagged and transported to Jobneel’s house where the coffee is dried on raised beds covered with shade for 14 – 20 days. During drying, Jobneel and his family removes all the impurities and defect parchment coffee from the good coffee.

Storage, milling and logistics.

  • After drying, the coffees are stored in air tight grain pro bags. Each daily picking is stored in separate bags until its final moisture and quality is checked and verified.
  • Lots with acceptable moisture content and quality are then delivered to the dry mill where the coffee gets cleaned and sorted before packaging for export.
  • The coffee is vacuum packed in sealed plastic bags before it is exported.

Shipping

For our Norwegian customers, we offer three shipping options:

  1. Pakke i Postkassen - With Pakke i Postkassen, tracking is provided, and delivery is estimated within 2-3 business days.
  2. Pakke til hentested - The parcel can be collected from a Post in Store, Post Office, parcel locker, or parcel box. This option includes tracking, with delivery expected within 1-5 business days.

For all international orders, we ship via DHL - Worldwide Express. This shipping method includes tracking, and all customs duties and taxes are covered in the shipping price, ensuring there are no unexpected charges for your order or its importation into the final destination. The estimated delivery time with DHL is 1-5 business days. For more information about shipping, please visit our FAQ page here. If you have further questions, please contact us here.

How to brew

Filter

  • We strongly recommend using the correct measurements and brewing techniques when you brew our coffees. Use a digital scale both to measure water and coffee in order to get consistent results, and we recommend using between 60 to 70 grams of coffee per litre (1000g) of water, depending on the brewing method, water quality and coffee used.

Espresso

  • We strongly recommend using VST filter baskets. Both the 18g, 20g and the 22g basket is great for our coffee. The VST filters makes it a lot easier to extract the espresso properly which gives a lot more sweetness in the cup. They are also more or less identical to each other which makes it easy to be more consistent when brewing on several groups at the same time. You can buy the filters on our webshop, just make sure they fit your machine (ours fits all La Marzocco machines and machines with 58mm filter baskets). With the VST 18g filter basket, we recommend the following brewing parameters: 18-19g freshly-ground coffee, 25-35s brewing time, 35-38g of final brew liquid in the cup, 93°C-94°C brew water temperature.

Tim's notes

Cielito Lindo is a small parcel of land owned by Extreberto Caceres Gutierrez, which is the father of Jobneel Caceres Dios, the owner of Finca Nacimiento.
Both farms are situated at the top of the El Cielito branch of the Santa Barbara mountain in Honduras where Cielito Lindo is at the very top of the mountain just below a forest reserve. The high altitude and moist, cool climate makes this one of the most unique areas for growing coffees in Honduras.

As Cielito Lindo is situated at the very top of this mountain it has become hard for Extreberto to take care of his own farm as he is now well above 80 years old. The only way to enter the farm is by walking up extremely steep trails and the only way to get the coffee down is by using donkeys to carry the bags of coffee down the hills. For this reason Jobneel is now taking care of the hard work on the farm while Extreberto is helping out with other tasks like drying and sorting the coffees.

You might not know that we actually bought coffee from Extreberto way back in 2008 at the Cup of Excellence. I really loved his fruity coffee and was shocked when I found out that it came from a Catimor cultivar, the Ihcafe 90. I liked the coffee so much that I decided to visit the farm in 2009 to see if we could start buying directly from Extreberto. The intention was to visit Extreberto but I was met by his son Jobneel instead and that was the start of a long relationship and the work we have done together over the last decade.

Honduras

Nacimiento

Jobneel Caceres Dios owns and runs finca Nacimiento with his wife Fany. They were the first farmers I started working with and buying directly from back in 2009 and since then we have been able to systematically improve their coffees to become one of the best in their area, an area that is by many considered to produce the best coffees in Honduras.

Read more about the farm