El Paraíso

El Paraíso is Honduras’s south-eastern coffee region, on the border with Nicaragua. It takes in the department of El Paraíso and parts of Choluteca and Francisco Morazán, and it has more coffee growers than any other region in the country. IHCAFE describes a sweet, soft, citrusy cup, and its farms have done well with Parainema, the rust-resistant variety bred in Honduras.

The short version

• South-east Honduras, on the Nicaraguan border.
• 1,100–1,700 metres, harvested December to March.
• Sweet, soft and citrusy, by IHCAFE’s profile.
• 879,858 quintales in 2022-23, about 12% of the national crop.
• The most coffee producers of any region: 29% in 2021.

What does El Paraíso coffee taste like?

Sweet, soft and citrusy. IHCAFE’s region profile describes a sweet fragrance, soft acidity and body, citrus flavours and a persistent aftertaste. Its introduction to the region goes further, mentioning flavours of champagne, grapes, mango and tropical fruit with a floral acidity.

In the Cup of Excellence, El Paraíso farms have placed in the category for Parainema, a disease-resistant variety developed in Honduras:

Year	Farm	Coffee	Place	Score
2023	Chavelo N°2	Parainema, washed	24th	87.58
2025	Laurel #3	Parainema, washed	2nd, Parainema category	89.47
2025	El Laurel #2	Parainema, washed	6th, Parainema category	87.15
2026	El Laurel	Parainema, washed	6th, Parainema category	87.68

Source: Alliance for Coffee Excellence.

Where and how is it grown?

IHCAFE’s profile of the region:

Measure	Figure
Departments	El Paraíso, part of Choluteca and Francisco Morazán
Altitude	1,100–1,700 m
Rainfall	950–1,950 mm a year
Temperature	16–24 °C
Shade	Inga, fruit and timber trees
Varieties	Catuaí, Caturra, Pacas, Parainema, Lempira
Harvest	December to March

Source: IHCAFE, via El Heraldo (2023).

Its 950 mm lower rainfall bound is the lowest of Honduras’s six regions in IHCAFE’s profiles. Parainema matters nationally too: USDA expects Honduras’s coffee area to grow by about 10,000 hectares in 2025/26, driven by the new variety. Coffee leaf rust remains a risk: in March 2026 incidence in El Paraíso department was 9.81%, above the national average of 8.44%, USDA reports.

How much coffee does El Paraíso grow?

Measure	Figure	Source
Production, El Paraíso department, 2022-23	879,858 quintales oro (46 kg)	IHCAFE annual report, via La Prensa and Hondudiario
Share of national production	12.3% of 7,159,804 quintales	Calculated from the same figures
Rank among departments	4th, after Comayagua, Copán and Lempira	IHCAFE, via La Prensa
Share of Honduras’s coffee producers, 2021	29%, the most of any regional office	La caficultura hondureña en 2021

A 2021 study of Honduran coffee farmers found that the El Paraíso regional office had the largest share of the country’s producers, ahead of Santa Bárbara and Copán with 15% each. The department’s 2022-23 harvest made it one of the seven departments that together grew 84.5% of Honduras’s coffee.

El Paraíso and other Honduran origins

• Coffee in Honduras: the whole country, its six regions and its harvest.
• Comayagua: the department that grows the most.
• Nueva Segovia: Nicaragua’s prize-winning region, also on the border.