LOS PLACERES, NICARAGUA (WASHED) SPECIALTY COFFEE

Fincas Mierisch comprises 9 coffee farms in Nicaragua and 3 coffee farms in Honduras.

In Nicaragua, the farms are located in the departments of Matagalpa and Jinotega. Matagalpa is home to 6 farms, while Jinotega, a little further northwest, is home to 3 farms. Each farm has a unique microclimate and soil composition, which makes their management and coffee quality truly distinct from each other.

We start with the best-ripened cherries, hand-picked. Then it’s all about the care and diligence during processing, fermentation, slow drying, grinding and sorting. It takes years of trial and error, experimenting with varieties and processes, never being completely satisfied, admitting that we don’t know everything, never settling for the status quo and making personal and financial improvements to help us get to the next level. Every harvest we know we can improve something and we keep trying.

It is an effort that can only be accomplished by focusing on one cherry, one tree, one day, and one bag at a time. This focus allows us to achieve complete separation of batches - giving us the opportunity to search for the gems on the cupping table.

It is not for the easily frustrated or impatient. In some cases, it takes up to 4 years to taste the results of an experiment. The reward for this work is the breadth of unique cup qualities in the batches we offer.

Coffee is about consistency. You want your coffee to taste the same all day long and year after year. We strive to provide our customers with the same quality, or better, every harvest. We achieve this through our strict and detailed harvesting and processing protocols. We understand that all of our customers want consistency.

Arabica Ethiosar variety

Ethiosar is a hybrid of the Ethiopian variety Rume Sudan and Sarchimor. The varieties are themselves hybrids. Rume Sudan is a Typica mutation from Ethiopia, Sarchimor is a hybrid of Villa Sarchi, a natural dwarf mutation of Bourbon and Timor.

Washed fermentation

The washing process is widely used in Latin America and parts of East Africa. It involves removing the pulp and mucilage from around the parchment, either by rubbing or by fermentation and large volumes of water. The most common practice of the different stages of this process is shown below:

- Selectively harvested cherries do not require extensive quality control. Once the cherries have been loaded into a siphon, the uniformity of ripeness can be easily assessed. Water is used to separate the floats and transport the cherries.

- The submerged cherries are transported to the pulper which forces the seeds out of the cherry by mechanical means. At this stage, the berries are still covered with a layer of mucilage that sticks to the parchment.

- Water is then used to stop fermentation by cleaning the parchment of microorganisms and organic matter. This water then carries the grains to the drying facilities. In addition, the grains can be separated in washing channels according to density.

- Coffee drying is done on terraces, raised African beds or mechanical dryers.

The washing process is the most resource-intensive processing method. It was developed in equatorial regions, where frequent rainfall required fast processing times.