Nicaragua/Panama

January 2024

A trip about discovering Latin America for the first time, coffee and friends. Read more

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Traveler Nicaragua/Panama
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- Jan 10, 2024, 7:46pm
- 🌙 20 °C
- Altitude: 1,124 m
- Nicaragua Departamento de Nueva Segovia Los Planes 13.776595, -86.5468613°46’36” N 86°32’49” W
Day 6
Processing Coffee
January 10 in Nicaragua ⋅ 🌙 20 °C
The coffee processing usually starts right after the harvest gets picked and weighed. Nowadays there are dozens of methods to do it - we decided on two different ones for our coffee lot:
Natural (full cherries)
Honey (depulped beans)

Both were floated first to seperate the unripe from the ripe cherries. Then the Natural (2 buckets, libras, 60lbs) went straight into a barrel where it will sit for 24 hours.
The honey went into the demulsifier. For our small lot a hand operated one, that splits the pulp from the beans. Then it is also rested in a barrel for 24 hours.

Our pickings went from 4.25 libras (52kgs) down to 2 libras each and 1 libra of beans for the depulped version… to be continued.

The next step is washing- since that won’t happen for a while we skipped ahead and washed a bigger lot of the Santa Rita farm.
In the washing (see video) the better quality beans as well as leftover pulp get separated due to the density differences (lighter things float on top).

We also took out faulty beans where the parchment was already damaged.Read more
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- Jan 11, 2024, 9:11am
- ⛅ 20 °C
- Altitude: 1,391 m
- Nicaragua Departamento de Nueva Segovia Municipio de Dipilto 13.753005, -86.45499413°45’11” N 86°27’18” W
Day 7
Mozonte - Finca de Doña Maria
January 11 in Nicaragua ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C
Since over 80% of Nicaraguas coffee comes from small farms, our trip wouldn’t be complete without seeing those smaller farms too.
Don Concho and Doña Maria’s farm is a 15 minute through the wilderness and across two rivers hike from a rural road. Remember that! All the coffee they produce needs to be carried down the same way we went up!

When we arrived Doña Maria was in the kitchen making Tortillas and Don Concho was cleaning their little depulping, drying and washing station. Currently they have 4 pickers that help them - usually it is a family production only!
Most of their coffee goes to Canada but some also to Sweden to make the famous Raven coffee (one that goes in my list of must tries!).
Although the living conditions are simple, what stands out is how clean everything is and how well they treat their coffee. A lot of care goes into the production here and the result is one of the best coffees you can drink!

Also, the place is really beautiful. 🌱🫶🏽⛰️Read more
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- Jan 11, 2024, 1:12pm
- ☀️ 31 °C
- Altitude: 610 m
- Nicaragua Departamento de Nueva Segovia Ocotal 13.631516, -86.47437313°37’53” N 86°28’28” W
Day 7
Ocotal
January 11 in Nicaragua ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C
Coming down from the farm we stopped at Ocotal to have some lunch. Like half the town we got in line and at the buffet ordered our lunch.

Most of us did so by pointing … 🤣
We finished our tour to the city with a stroll to take in the sights and some of us ice cream before heading back for an afternoon of school.Read more
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- Jan 11, 2024, 5:23pm
- ☀️ 23 °C
- Altitude: 1,280 m
- Nicaragua Departamento de Nueva Segovia Dipilto Viejo 13.766872, -86.50775113°46’1” N 86°30’28” W
Day 7
Processing coffee part 2
January 11 in Nicaragua ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C
After our day out and about it was time to continue processing our coffee lot. Since it was a small amount, we hand washed it in a bucket instead of the big washing line.
Then we brought it to the drying house where we would pack it the next morning to go to the dry mill.Read more
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Traveler Nicaragua/Panama
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- Jan 11, 2024, 9:11pm
- 🌙 20 °C
- Altitude: 1,124 m
- Nicaragua Departamento de Nueva Segovia Los Planes 13.776546, -86.54689913°46’36” N 86°32’49” W
Day 7
Foods & Living on Finca El Arbol
January 11 in Nicaragua ⋅ 🌙 20 °C
Just a collection of impressions of the food and living conditions of the Finca…
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- Jan 12, 2024, 8:42am
- ☀️ 23 °C
- Altitude: 682 m
- Nicaragua Departamento de Nueva Segovia Mozonte 13.655415, -86.4400713°39’19” N 86°26’24” W
Day 8
Beneficio Secco / Dry Mill Brido Azul
January 12 in Nicaragua ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C
The last part of the coffee process is the Dry Mill, where the coffee gets delivered, weighed, and processed for shipping.

The Brido Azul just moved to this bigger space in November so there was still construction going on. We flipped the coffee in the African beds and spread it out on the tarp. Of course all of it is labeled by lot and origin to keep traceability.

Also naturals and washed equipment is kept seperate.Read more
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- Jan 12, 2024, 12:36pm
- ☀️ 30 °C
- Altitude: 650 m
- Nicaragua Departamento de Nueva Segovia Mozonte 13.64809, -86.44584813°38’53” N 86°26’45” W
Day 8
Cupping
January 12 in Nicaragua ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C
I’m still fairly new to cupping after the virtual one I did a couple months ago. So I was really excited for this day and the chance to cup straight at the producer/dry mill with super fresh coffees.

The first table were 5 coffees from Nicaragua and 5 African heritage coffees - some of them grown here, some in Africa.

The second table was 12 coffees from the same farm, a multitude of them the same bean but processed differently.

The taste variety was mind blowing! It’s hard for non coffee people to understand talk about ripe berries, citrus fruit, tea-like… but even the inexperienced would taste the big variety that was present in the 22 samples.

We also learned that the fresh fresh coffees contain a bit more acidity than you would get when cupped at the destination. Gloria did an expert job at setting everything up and it was just an anading experience.Read more
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- Jan 13, 2024, 5:15pm
- ☀️ 29 °C
- Altitude: 48 m
- Nicaragua Granada 11.930325, -85.95419111°55’49” N 85°57’15” W
Day 9
Granada
January 13 in Nicaragua ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C
Next stop was Granada, a colonial town an hour from Managua.
I believe the pictures speak for themselves. Very different from Managua, very colorful and more tourists (eventhough not that many still). I loved the food options.Read more
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- Jan 14, 2024, 10:18am
- ☀️ 29 °C
- Altitude: 49 m
- Nicaragua Granada 11.931551, -85.95531811°55’54” N 85°57’19” W
Day 10
Museo de Cacao
January 14 in Nicaragua ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C
The cacao bean has always been closely linked to the coffee bean in origin countries (the cacao belt is similar to the coffee, especially the Robusta that is grown at lower heights), distribution channels as well as processing.

At the finca el Arbol I had my first run in with the cacao plant and the fresh beans - so a visit to the cacao museum was a must!
The museum is free, rather simple but offers some specials like a spa, a hotel, free tours and free chocolate processing.

I ended my 10 minute self guided tour with an original Atztecan hot chocolate. I took unsweetened just to experience what the colonists must’ve felt (to some degree). Drinkable, far away from the regular hot chocolate but an experience I won’t forget!

(Yes, for my second half I did get one spoon of sugar 🤷🏽‍♀️🙈)Read more
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- Jan 14, 2024, 12:38pm
- ☀️ 31 °C
- Altitude: 67 m
- Nicaragua Departamento de Masaya Pacayita 11.94051, -86.0480511°56’26” N 86°2’53” W
Day 10
La Laguna de Apoyo
January 14 in Nicaragua ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C
The volcano crater sea is a wonderful refreshment on a hot day.
Blue, perfect temperature, lots of nature and food options.
I chilled in the Laguna Beach clubs lounge chair and hammocks - good times!!! 🙌🏽Read more
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