22 Oct 2019
Charlotte, our Green Bean Buyer, and Nich, our Head Roaster, have landed in Nicaragua as the first stop in their round of adventures visiting coffee origins.
They spent three days with Julio Peralta and Octavio Peralta in the Nueva Segovia region. The Peralta family has a mill and lab in Ocotal as well as owning a few farms in the Dipilto/Jalapa mountain ranges.
“On the first day we visited Finca La Argentina, which is a 70 hectares farm located at 1400m altitude. Like most of the Nicaraguan farms, they mainly grow Catuai variety as it has adapted so well to the environment and gives a good and safe taste profile. They have also started to experiment with some more exotic varieties like Java and Ethiopians.
Finca La Argentina is the oldest farm in the Peralta family, it has been with them for more than 100 years.On the second day we visited Finca La Samaria which is a 50 hectare farm, located between 1350 to 1600m altitude, right at the border of Honduras!
In addition to farm visits (we spent in total 18 hours in the car!), we also spend a good amount of time in their cupping lab, where we met their new team of cuppers. We were really focused on getting calibrated with them, we cupped a total of 156 cups!”