Norma Lara
A&E Coffee Roastery and Tea welcomes back Norma Lara Micro-lot Honduran coffee just in time for the fall. This customer and staff favorite is not only an exceptional cup of coffee but also an example of a great global collaboration between coffee producer Norma Lara and Emeran.
Norma Lara is a single-mother coffee producer who views her craft as a link to sustainability for her and her daughter. A few years ago, Emeran went on an origin trip to visit Norma in Honduras and personally did a blind cupping of her coffee. After the cupping, Emeran was able to distinguish Norma’s exceptional coffee over several others. Since then we has been proud to purchase beans from Norma’s micro lot each year and continue this global partnership. In fact, we purchased nearly half of Norma’s crop this year and hope to buy even more of next years crop.
Another reason Emeran is so passionate about Norma Lara’s coffee is that Norma works for a co-op that focuses on supporting and educating women in the coffee business. Cocafelol Co-op is a certified organic and Fair Trade wet mill in the town of La Labor, Ocotepeque Honduras, near the El Salvador boarder. They support major initiatives to promote women entrepreneurship in the coffee industry. They provide micro-credits to women producers, provide space for a women operated coffee roasting company, and offer many educations classes for both women and kids.
Norma’s daughter receiving a coffee training certificate
Norma works in the tasting lab at the co-op, and her daughter is going through the kids coffee training courses to learn about good, sustainable agriculture of growing coffee. They also learn to taste coffee, an important skill to understanding quality coffee. “Cocafelol has the aim to promote the integral development of children in the culture of coffee. Little by little, the kids are learning the whole process of quality of our coffee and they are acquiring skill to recognize the best coffees, as well as knowing their faults and as defects.”