Spirit Origin wins Honduras Cup of Excellence top lot again

Spirit Origin Coffee bought the No. 1 lot at the 2026 Cup of Excellence Honduras auction for the second straight year, keeping the country’s top coffee in Honduras. The winning Parainema from Finca La Loma will be roasted in Roatán and served in very limited quantities at the company’s Coffee Omakase.

Why it matters: - Spirit Origin’s back-to-back win keeps Honduras’ highest-scoring coffee at origin instead of sending it abroad. - The purchase reinforces a growing local market for top-tier Honduran coffee and raises the profile of Parainema, a variety developed in Honduras. - The auction result also sends more money directly to the producer through a record-setting sale price.

What happened: - Spirit Origin Coffee secured the No. 1 lot at the 2026 Cup of Excellence Honduras Auction. - The winning coffee is a natural-process Parainema from Finca La Loma in Santa Bárbara, produced by Ottoniel Sagastume Pineda. - The international Cup of Excellence jury scored the lot 89.14 points. - Spirit Origin won the lot for $28.40 per pound, or $15,026.72 total, for 529.11 pounds across eight boxes. - The 2026 Honduras Cup of Excellence auction set a new historic average price record. - Spirit Origin said the company will roast the coffee at origin and serve it in Roatán.

The details: - Ottoniel Sagastume Pineda, 45, has spent 17 years growing coffee at Finca La Loma in Santa Bárbara. - The farm uses shade-grown Parainema, a Honduras-born variety that has often been overshadowed by imported cultivars. - Heavy rains and difficult farm roads challenged the harvest, and Pineda invested in his own equipment and community labor to get the coffee to competition. - Spirit Origin’s flagship roastery is a 12,000-square-foot facility in First Bight, Roatán. - The coffee will be served exclusively at Spirit Origin’s 21-seat, reservation-only Coffee Omakase, described as the first of its kind in Central America. - Availability will be strictly limited because of the small lot size. - Guests will taste the coffee near the place where the effort to keep Honduras’ best coffee in Honduras began. - Reservations will open soon at Spirit Origin’s website. - The company’s baristas are SCA-certified. - Spirit Origin is a B Corp-certified specialty coffee company focused on direct trade, transparent sourcing and roasting at origin. - The flagship location also includes a Probat roastery, the From the Roots restaurant and a café ranked among the Top 100 Coffee Shops in the Americas. - Spirit Origin developed the Coffee Omakase with Tokyo’s KOFFEE MAMEYA. - Last year, Spirit Origin, then called Spirit Animal Coffee, bought both the No. 1 and No. 2 lots at Cup of Excellence in Honduras and kept them in-country.

Between the lines: - The second straight top-lot purchase turns a one-time headline into a broader positioning strategy for Spirit Origin and for Honduran specialty coffee. - Keeping champion lots in Honduras lets the company control the experience, the roasting and the storytelling around the coffee. - The win also puts more attention on Roatán as a destination for high-end coffee tourism, not just coffee production.

What's next: - Spirit Origin plans to roast the La Loma lot at origin and offer it in very limited quantities. - The company will open reservations soon for the Coffee Omakase experience. - Guests will be able to taste the champion coffee in Roatán as part of a producer-focused service model. - Spirit Origin’s announcement frames the next phase as bringing the world to Honduras, rather than exporting the coffee out of the country.