Coffee (and Beans and Rice…)

Phil, Chris and I recently flew down to Nicaragua for a whirlwind tour of some coffee lands (as a guest of Steve Mierisch, our local Intelligentsia sales rep in NYC). Steve greeted us at the airport and drove us from Managua to downtownMatagalpa where we had our first great meal at his father’s office. From then on, it was non-stop coffee-focused activity punctuated by a two-hour horse ride and some infamous Flor de Caña rum. 

We spent one morning with some of the farmers in the LasBrumas Co-op (Intelligentsia’s “Flor Azul” comes from there). It was an honor to meet these people andtheir families and to learn about all of the challenges that come with being soinvolved in producing such quality and select beans. The co-op members took, what seemed to them, to be a big risk in order to work in partnership with Intelligentsia and their "Direct Trade" program, investing time and money to receive an unsubstantiated higher price per pound, when they could have just kept selling their coffee to large exporters. Their work continues and the reputation of the co-op and the quality of the coffee it produces continues to grow. It was great to see how even a seemingly small improvement, like, for one example, the solar dryers, could make things on the individual farms work more efficiently while giving the farmers more control over the quality of the beans.

We talked over lunch about the ways all of the differentparts of the farm work together -how the banana trees give potassium to thesoil, how the old cherry pulp is used to fertilize the ground…so many elementsworking in synchronization in such a beautiful place (altitude 1200-1350m).Local-grown is an understatement here as all the food we ate that day was grownright on the farm. (It was also the first time the growers had met a direct retail account, and the farmers were filled with pride as we told them just how popular their coffees were in the bustling streets of NYC.)  

The next day, after a great breakfast of beans and rice, wevisited two of the Mierisch family farms to look at different varietals ofcoffee trees. There were both yellow and red Pacamara trees on the Limoncellofarm. The yellow cherries tasted like passion fruit – they were very differentfrom what we had been used to tasting with the red cherries. We then searchedlow and high for the elusive java tree. Steve just told us to look for the onesthat are shaped like Christmas trees! We eventually found them. My personal favorite farm was Finca San Jose.It was luscious green and magical with an excellent view. When we got there, the cherry picking had just ended for the day and some of the pickers were waiting for a ride back into town for the evening. 

The more we saw, from wet mill to dry mill from farm tofarm, the more we realized how much effort it takes to get such great coffee inour cups. We were all captivated by the dreamy beauty of the landscape but thetruck bouncing over the rugged roads kept us alert and focused. 

The morning of our departure we visited two dry mills. At one large mill, the processing equipment and tables the“specialty” beans went through were painted one color to differentiate them from the "commercial" equipment. The specialty processincluded so many more sorting and selecting steps just at the dry mill alone(after all of the initial sorting and selecting done from picking onwards).This large-scale division really highlighted what the word “Specialty” coffee means – a word thatalways seemed a bit subjective to me in the past. 

We then had the great opportunity to cup coffees from mostof the farms we had visited. Each one on the table was delicious and unique – everyaltitude showed different characteristics. We especially enjoyed the earl greysubtlety of the java beans. A special thanks to Intelligentsia and Steve and his family for hosting us on our brief but captivating visit. Phil’s Nica trip report to follow…