Soul Glo
Turn on, tune in, and illuminate — your inner glow awaits. One sip and the funk reverberates, a tropical citrus grove blooms in the island of your mind.
This lot includes coffee from Clementino Ramirez, at La Fortuna in Selguapa, Comayagua. Scroll down to read more.
Enjoy as pour over.
Clementino Ramirez
Clementino was one of the first growers we had the pleasure of connecting with at the beginning of Semilla, back in 2019. He and his brothers are among the first, if not the very first, to begin growing coffee in the small hamlet of Selguapa, high up in the Montecillos mountain range. Their family's history in coffee reaches back to the 1980s, but it was only in 2019, when we met them, that they were taking their first steps towards a differentiated market.
That connection came via Jesus Galeas, Clementino's son-in-law, an IHCAFE field technician whose job was to travel to overlooked areas of the country and train growers in farm maintenance, cherry collection, fermentation and drying. One of his first stops was his own extended family, at 1,700 masl in Selguapa, growing heirloom Bourbon and Typica. He was certain the coffees held real potential if processed well, and he was right.
The traditional mode of sale here is the intermediary model — coffee sold in cherry, or as pre-secado, picked, de-pulped and dried three or four days before being handed on. Prices in that system are extremely low, and it is common for producers to hand over their coffee on the promise of payment and never see a cent. Even in a good year like 2024, growers in these communities reported farmgate prices of around $0.85 USD/lb for parchment, before the cost of getting it to the buying point.
That pressure pushed Clementino and his son north. He spent close to five years in Seattle, well into his sixties, working days as a labourer and nights in a kitchen, sending everything home until the farm's debts were paid and there was enough left to buy a new plot — which the family planted with coffee last year.
He returned to Honduras in early 2024 and worked the whole season on the farm, and has since become an ambassador for us in neighbouring communities like Toriles, Buena Vista and Cantolal. With his help, Sueños de Semilla has grown to include around 25 local smallholders who had never exported their coffee before. Last year we bought the extended family's entire production, and we did the same again this year.
Selguapa, in the Montecillos mountain range — where Clementino and his brothers first planted coffee.
Technical specs
- Varieties
- Bourbon
- Process
- Natural
- Farm
- La Fortuna
- Size
- 2.5 hectares
- Location
- Selguapa, Comayagua
- Altitude
- 1,700 masl
- Harvested
- January to May 2025, shipped September 2025
Processing
Cherries are picked daily by a team of four pickers, floated to remove defects, then stored in sealed plastic bags for a 48-hour low-oxygen fermentation. They are then moved from Selguapa to Jesus de Otoro, to the central drying station of the Ramirez-Galeas family farm.
There the cherries are laid on raised beds under shade and dried slowly over 42 to 50 days. The dried cherries are stored in hermetically sealed bags to preserve their quality.