Coffee, "Nicaragua - Idealista" | South Slope Coffee

Producer: Ben Weiner – Rainforest Micro-lot
District: Matagalpa
Farm: Finca Idealista
Altitude: 1200 MASL
Varietal: Caturra
Process: Fully Washed and dried on raised beds
Notes: Cherries, red grape, pear, cantaloupe

A beautiful micro-lot grown in Finca Idealista’s Rainforest all shade grown and a single varietal consisting of 100% Caturra. The smell right after brewing is just phenomenal, a honey like sweetness fills the air. Nice medium body with a straight up cherry taste and sweetness; as the coffee cools notes of pear and cantaloupe appear. Very nicely balanced coffee overall. It is surely pleasing. And as you drink this magnificent cup you can rest assured that the farmers that picked and processed this coffee are being taken care of and the environment surrounding this farm as well.

Finca Idealista sits on a mountaintop that borders a nature reserve, whose trees act as a natural air conditioner for its many varieties of award-winning coffee beans. This cool microclimate lengthens the coffee cherry maturity process, allowing beans more time to absorb natural sugars and other attributes that contribute to a rounded cup profile.

Finca Idealista workers receive the highest wages around. Local pickers are trained to pick only the reddest cherries so that the farm’s crop reaches its full potential and highest level of sweetness. Extraordinary care is taken, both during wet and dry processing, to inspect all beans and ensure that only the finest, ripest coffee is exported. In addition to washed coffee, the farm has invested in special infrastructure to increase production of natural and honey process coffee, with outstanding cupping results.

Finca Idealista invests in volcanic filters to protect the environment from run-off when coffee is washed. The volcanic material is brought from Masaya, one of Nicaragua’s volcanic regions. The farm saves its best coffee cherries to make coffee cherry tea and uses the rest as nutrients for coffee plants and fruit trees. Notably, Idealista bought a rainforest just to protect its flora and fauna.

In addition to its focus on quality, Finca Idealista, through its partner social enterprise Gold Mountain Coffee Growers, supports the growth and development of the community through educational supplies and running water for schools, scholarships and medical supplies, free computing classes for girls, and new initiatives based on needs assessment. Gold Mountain Coffee Growers won the SCAE Sustainability Award for its economic and environmental achievements.