Bay Island Diver:
The coffee in Roatan is superb - I always bring pounds of it back to the UK when I visit the family. More suitale as rocket fule than coffee, mind you thats what I needed that particular day!
{Ask Tim at CoCoView about the Killer Whales- he's got pix}
England- the land of coffee... or was it tea? The ongoing slamming of any Bay Islands All Inclusives (in general) and CCV in particular is heard, acknowledged and registered.
Fact? The locally grown coffee in Honduras is absolute garbage. This is because of geography. Just South of Honduras lies the coffee producing nation Nicaragua, a place which is laden with volcanic residue. Alas- Honduras is not, so all the country can grow is Bananas... hence- the original banana republic.
Nicaragua is well known for excellent coffee.
Rocket Fule (fuel)
however, can be an acquired taste. 
Medaglia de Oro and
Indio Fuerte are two brands (Willy graced you with his opinion of the brand which he referenced as "oro") that are
muy typico of Honduran coffee. In Honduras, the locals do brew it "cowboy style" which means that it is prepared and served just like Willy Boy here said- by the tank full. CoCoView heard the guests and a year ago installed coffee makers in the rooms... as well as serving that same Americanized watered-down brown fluid (USA stop-and-rob style coffee) in the main dining hall. Everybody that visits is now "happy". We get
our coffee from the brewer that the kitchen girls and yard boys use. This will remove the hair from your teeth.
There is
so little Honduran or even Bay islands Culture remaining- you can barely find a source for any of the true local foods (Casaba Bread being a major loss), it amazes me that visitors fixate on coffee "because it isn't the same" as back home. So to make us more comfortable and alleviate the feeling of not having Paddington Bear snuggled in our bed- they change the coffee. Starbucks is only a few weeks from opening on Roatan (not) .
Truthfuly, for the week or two weeks at a time that we often visit, we always found the old style coffee
"startling". But we always bought & took some home- and back in Chicago it tasted... icky. We viewed it as being enhanced by the sound of the ocean, the smell of wet rubber, who was to know?
To get good effect back home in a Mr. Coffee- you must understand that the Honduran is a different
"grind" and because of this, we have to adjust and experiment a bit. Now, we use 1 scoop of Honduran Coffee to every 3 scoops of Hills Brothers. The 1 scoop turns the three Hills Brothers into real coffee... the three seem to calm down the Honduran. Try it.
If I was there for an extended period of time, I soon switched to tea, something which the Brits truly have a handle on. When I'm in England, I think the Tea there sucks- even if you were born well enough to afford the $4 a cup.
Gimmee Lipton Tea, let it soak. Just another boor
from the colonies.
So, yes,
I do suggest the common folk's kind of coffee- Medaglia del Oro and Indio Fuerte. Also, pick up the Vanilla Extract (very cheap and the real deal) to make a Vanilla flavored coffee or for baking.
A nice gift is also Cinamon Sticks- raw bark... nothing sugary here! Look for Honduran hot sauces- check in either the Franch Harbour or Coxen Hole modern grocery stores.
Your cab driver can show you where in Bario Fuerte that you can buy (non Honduran) Flor de Cana Rum at bargain prices- although at the grocery stores you will find better varieties of the more exotic types that FdC bottles.
There's lots of little Honduran treasures that you can bring home and gift your friends with- some for Honduran tastes- some made up for tourists.
but if you catch it at high tide, it's usually a winner. It can change in seconds. Tim was shooting pix of me and Ray Cordell {scuba24} while I was holding the Chicago Tribune (it got published!)... the viz was 30 feet if that. Ray and I swam in. Tim (who has gills) stayed out and enjoyed what he described as 120'+ viz that appeared within seconds of our departure. Night diving the wreck in CCV's Front Yard makes the viz issue immaterial, you're only dealing with the need for 6-15' anyway, so 25' viz is irrelevant.
