Late But Timely – Phil’s NicarBLOGua

As some of you may recall, this past February I had the incredible opportunity to travel with Chris and Caroline to Nicaragua to tour some coffee farms. This was my first—and so far my only—trip to origin, and it proved to be a lasting educational experience.

On that trip we were hosted and given the red carpet tour by Intelligentsia’s Steve Mierisch – his family owns and operates several small coffee farms in the Matagalpa region. On our last day in Nicaragua, we toured the Mierisch family’s dry mill, which processes coffees harvested from all of their farms. At the end of the tour we were treated to a cupping that included a flight of various lots of coffee, representing all of their farms that we had just visited. Last month we featured a coffee from one of these farms, Finca San Jose. This coffee was offered through Intelligentsia’s Direct Trade program, and although Steve is an Intelly employee, this was surprisingly the first time they had offered his family’s coffee. It was exciting for me to see this coffee in our shop, as it was the first time I’ve had the opportunity to serve a coffee that only a few short months ago I was watching being picked and processed at origin.

This week we are offering a coffee that is even more special. It comes from another of the Mierisch’s farms, Finca Limoncillo. In the cupping that I mentioned at the Mierisch dry mill, there was one coffee on the table that we all agreed stood out from the rest. A day earlier, Steve had taken us to the very top of their Limoncillo farm to look for a tiny lot of coffee plants that he claimed were extra-special. We were looking for the elusive Java varietal, which apparently is quite rare to this growing region. Steve told us that they only had a handful of plants of this varietal on the farm, and it took even him, who knows his farms like the back of his hand, quite some time to find this tiny outcropping. He told us to look for coffee plants that looked like Christmas trees, and finally after a good deal of searching, we found them. There were indeed only a handful of these trees—perhaps a dozen or so—clustered together. Steve told us that in this years harvest they had separated this varietal into its own micro-lot, and the next day we found a sample of this lot on the cupping table. We all knew right away that this was a special coffee. With a creamy yet tea-like body and notes of jasmine, cedar, and tropical fruit, it was far more delicate and complex than any Nicaraguan coffee I had ever experienced.

As it turns out, this coffee ended up placing 2nd in this year’s Nicaragua Cup of Excellence competition. In 2007, a coffee from one of the Mierisch’s farms received its first Cup of Excellence recognition: 27th place. The fact that only a year later one of their coffees was awarded 2nd place is a testament to the great lengths they have gone through to improve their farming, sorting and processing methods each season. We can only assume that more great things are to come from the Mierisch family farms in the coming years. In the meantime, we are very proud to offer this exquisite and extremely rare coffee, roasted by Intelligentsia. Much hype has been made in the past several years about the superior coffees from the now famous Hacienda La Esmeralda in Panama, and deservedly so. But in my opinion, this Java varietal from Finca Limoncillo, though lesser known, is every bit in the same league as the Esmeralda, and well worth the price. I’m excited that producers like the Mierisch family are starting to bring attention to the fact that Nicaragua is currently growing some of the finest coffees in the world.

We are selling this coffee at Grumpy for $37 per 12oz bag. This price includes hopelessly little markup. And while this still might prove prohibitive for the average coffee drinker, I don’t believe it is at all exorbitant. I have seen first-hand where this coffee was grown. I have seen and touched the very trees that bore this coffee. I have seen and met some of the farmers who pick this coffee by hand for many hours a day to support their families who live in shanty huts with no plumbing. I have seen the pride and care that these people put into growing, harvesting, milling, sorting and drying this coffee. I have seen the commitment Steve and his father and all of their farmers are making to improve their farming techniques and their infrastructures with each growing season. There are a great number of steps involved in producing a coffee of this caliber before it is ever exported or roasted, and every step along the way is crucial the final product in your cup. For those of you with the financial means, I urge you to treat yourself, and consider the price you are paying for this rare coffee a reward for the farmers and their families for all the pride, dedication and difficult labor they have given to bring you this incredibly unique coffee experience. Your purchase of this special coffee not only rewards the farmers for their efforts and supports their families, but also encourages them to continue improving their farming practices in the coming years, with the hope of yielding even better coffees for you to enjoy in the future.

Stay tuned for more Nicaraguan coffees on the horizon. In the not-too-distant future we are expecting the 2008 Flor Azul crop, from the Las Brumas Co-op in Nicaragua. We also met with the farmers from this co-op during our visit, and theirs was one of our most popular coffees when it was on our menu earlier this year. The members of Las Brumas were extremely proud to show us their sustainable growing practices, their all-by-hand wet milling process, their painstaking sorting methods and their new solar dryers. Not only that, but they fed us a magnificent lunch that included vegetables, cheese and coffee all grown on their farms. Never before had these farmers been visited by anybody on the retail end of the production chain, and I could see that it made them proud to know that their coffee was greatly appreciated by consumers. When we told them that their coffee was the bestseller on our menu at our shop in New York City, they were so proud that they hugged each other. With all the improvements to production they showed us during our visit, this year’s crop promises to be even better than last year’s.

As a barista, its has been almost a surreal experience to see several coffees arrive in our shop that I saw only a few months ago as cherries on trees in a country that seems a world away. Having seen where these coffees were born, and after seeing what the farmers go through to bring us these coffees, it feels like a big responsibility to be the final link in the chain and to bring these coffees to fruition in the cup. Every time I serve one of these coffees from Nicaragua, I take a bit more care and pride than usual in placing that cup across the counter. I have enjoyed sharing my experience with customers almost as much as I’ve enjoyed drinking the coffees myself.

Cheers,

Phil