Single origins from Santa Bárbara Mountain are among the most revered in all of Central America. But this wasn’t always the case. The region’s starlike status owes much to Benjamin Paz’s family, who runs Beneficio San Vicente, a dry mill and exporter that connects the local farming community to specialty roasters. While Benjamin devotes much of his time helping other farmers, he also grows coffee on his personal farm.

Years back, he noticed how the cultivar Parainema, developed in Honduras for disease resistance, produced magnificently perfumed coffee in Santa Bárbara’s chilly mountain climate. The cultivar is rarely isolated as a single origin, and this coffee’s spellbinding taste is an example of a cultivar finding its happy place—in this case, Benjamin Paz’s farm. Sparkling with brisk herbal notes and the delicate aromas of vanilla, cedar, and rose, this single origin was called one of the year’s most memorable by a member of our Green Coffee Team.