Your Coffee
Nicaragua Santa Lucilla
NICARAGUA
FARMERS: Paguaga family
LOCATION: Ocotal, Nicaragua
CULTIVARS: Caturra, yellow and red caturra, villassarchi
FARM SIZE: 5 estates, 140 hectares in total
ALTITUDE: 600 - 1,700 meters above sea level
EXPORTER: Café Vidita
IMPORTER: This Side Up Coffees
ROASTER: Special Roast
Nicaragua - coffee specs
What to taste for:
Aroma: floral, orange blossom, milk chocolate hints.
Body: round mouthfeel, hazelnut, chocolate.
Acidity: citrus, orange. clear appearance, but not stringent.
Aftertaste: brown sugar feel, with mild acidity.
PROCESSING YOUR COFFEE
Coffee is handpicked, measured, and de-pulped without water. Shortly after, it ferments in the tanks for 15 to 36 hours. It is then washed and transported to Santa Lucila Drymill, where it is processed until it reaches 11 degrees in humidity. Coffee is packed in 69 Kg. Knaff bags.
ROASTING YOUR COFFEE
Special Roast uses a 22kg Probat UG22 roaster, that has been built in 1965. To obtain the best flavor and taste each coffee or blend has a unique roast profile.
Relative price breakdown:
61%
The percentage of the sales price that the Paguaga family pays the farmers for their wet parchment.
10%
Total costs of drying and dry processing the coffee. This includes drying to perfection on raised beds, and processing, sorting, grading in state of the art equipment before exporting.
8%
The approximate total shipping costs and fees from Ocotal, Nicaragua to Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
5%
Average financing cost we have to pay social lenders and banks - simply because we don’t have the money in the bank to buy such large amounts of coffee all at once. This ensures immediate payment to Cafe Vidita when the coffee leaves the port.
16%
This Side Up compensation for spending time and resources importing this coffee. Work includes financing, warehousing, managing export, import and shipping bureaucracy, Q grading, sampling and promoting this coffee.
ABOUT THE FARMER
Los Congos, Las Brumas, La Iguana, La Española, and La Portuguesa are all located in Nueva Segovia, a well know coffee region surrounded by communities that have long benefited from coffee. The Paguaga family runs five coffee estates in this region and even managed to protect the mountaintops of their properties, proclaiming them a natural reserve. Rina and René aim to make their estates a model for other farmers in the region to follow, and they do so with a systematic approach. Soil is carefully analysed, and rigorous nutrition plans for the trees are executed throughout the year. They truly work for healthy, happy estates.
