Kelvin Pineda - La Arianita
My memories go back to 2019, when Kelvin won 1st place in Late Harvest Auction held by Project Origin, where I was able to buy his winning Bourbon. A lot has changed since then.
Kelvin grew up around coffee, but responsibility arrived early. After his father died in 2010, he stepped into an adult life carrying far more than most young producers ever should. For several years, selling vegetables made more sense than coffee: it moved faster, paid sooner, and helped keep food on the table for his mother and siblings.
When he returned to coffee in 2017, it was not a romantic return to origin. It was a deliberate decision to build something steadier, more valuable and long lasting. That same year, after acquiring a small parcel through his father-in-law, he produced his first specialty lot and it was outstanding.
In Santa Bárbara, such beginnings matter and are often visible. Kelvin is part of the extended circle around his brother in law - Elio Díaz and Beneficio San Vicente — a network that has helped give Santa Bárbara growers a route into the specialty market without separating quality from family, or agriculture from community.
As Elio’s health made farm work more difficult in 2020, Kelvin took on more of the management and gradually became the working force most closely associated with La Arianita. A farm named after his oldest daughter (picture below).
In 2019, one of Kelvin's coffees — a washed Bourbon from Los Andes — received the highest score in the Best of Honduras Late Harvest, breaking 90 points. I was able to buy this lot. Then in 2023, La Arianita placed 13th in the Honduras Cup of Excellence with a washed Pacas lot that sold for US$20.20 per pound at an auction.
Those results matter, of course, but what they really show is something simpler: La Arianita is producing coffees of real quality, while staying focused in the varieties and washed profiles that have made Santa Bárbara so respected.
What I find especially touching, is that Kelvin’s dream is not framed in big or dramatic terms. He simply wants to visit a café that serves his coffee. There is something very honest in that. It speaks to the part of specialty coffee that matters most — not only recognition, but connection.
The wish to see your work valued, prepared with care, and enjoyed far from where it was grown. La Arianita is more than a beautiful coffee from Santa Bárbara. It is a reminder that continuity, family knowledge and close relationships still sit at the heart of meaningful coffee work.
The washed profile from La Arianita is built as almost every classical washed process around the area. Cherries are hand-picked, moved down the slopes by mule and processed the same day. Dry fermentation windows of roughly 16 to 24 hours, followed by washing and drying on raised beds for around two weeks. Kelvin also focuses on election, cleanliness and removing defects one by one.
That way of working is also why La Arianita feels right for change of tone. We not only love Kelvin's family but it is a farm where the producer’s decisions remain visible in the cup. The steepness, the manual transport, the old Pacas cultivar, the careful washed process, the willingness to improve agronomy without abandoning what already works — all of it points to a producer who is not trying to imitate somebody else’s success story.
Watch the short video from wet mill facility.