Angel Arturo Paz Ramirez - El Guaco
Angel Arturo Paz - the backbone of sensory evaluation at Beneficio San Vicente, friend with excellent cupping precision and mentor for me. Arturo, before it became trendy, was developing protocols for organic farming in Santa Barbara. Now he is starting to do Agroforestry. Owns Itacayo, El Guaco, La Tigra, El Tango, and Escondido.
His grandfather, Cantalicio Paz, was one of the early coffee farmers in the Lake Yojoa and Santa Bárbara area, and the next generations continued working with coffee in the mountains around San Vicente, Ilama, and Peña Blanca. Angel Arturo is a college-trained agronomic engineer. He is not only growing coffee; he is also tasting, evaluating, advising, processing, and helping connect Santa Bárbara producers with roasters around the world throughout his work at Beneficio San Vicente.
photo: Henrik Haavisto
His uncle, Don Fidel Paz Sabillón, built Beneficio San Vicente in the early 1980s — the mill that now processes and exports most of the lots in our Honduras portfolio. Arturo joined the operation around 2000, alongside Don Fidel's son. His coffees are not made to be loud or exaggerated. They are always clean, elegant, structured, and very carefully processed. Most of his coffees are washed, but the way he handles them shows a lot of precision: ripe cherry selection, careful depulping, controlled fermentation, washing, flotation, slow drying, sorting, and protected storage before export.
For me, the most important thing about Ángel Arturo Paz is that he represents a very mature kind of coffee production. It is not only romantic farming. It is technical, disciplined, and connected to export quality. He understands moisture, water activity, fermentation, drying, cupping, storage, and buyer expectations. That makes him both a farmer and a quality architect.
Arturo protects the surrounding forest and water sources, while also managing coffee pulp and honey waters responsibly after processing. IHCAFE specifically notes his conservation practices, including forest and water protection, proper handling of pulp and wastewater, and the use of shade trees such as guamo, siles, nogal, and avocado to regulate shade in the coffee plots.
photo: Henrik Haavisto
I have been working with Arturo for roughly ten years. The longest active relationship in my network.
Arturo at Finca La Maravilla