regenerating the roots

Gonzalo's grandfather educated him to respect Mother Earth growing up. Practically he has been related to coffee and the world it brings, all his life. He has been farming coffee for 45 years now along with livestock, fish, pigs and horses. Till then he was heavily relying on pesticides and inorganic fertilizers for coffee farming, his career of working for one of the largest exporters didn't help this cause either. It wasn't until a health crisis and learning about coffee from an industrial perspective, he realized the importance of cherishing the natural world. Even though he has 3 certifications - Rainforest Alliance, CAFE practices and SMS from Ecom, he finally stopped being an organic producer just on certificate instead became one in practice. He has been instrumental in spreading his organic farming knowledge among our other farmer friends. He has 3 children who are all doctors - a pediatrician, radiologist and psychologist. But all three of them have also passed the coffee school too! They all collectively have extensive knowledge on farm to cup including farm management, cupping, barista experience. They have been working with Gonzalo in various capacities to produce coffee.

Gonzalo cares for his coffees like he does his own children. Attentive yet stern with nutritional requirements! He strongly believes for a sustainable future, it is necessary to produce more but without compromising on the collective future. We hope to be in close touch the coming years on how to spread regenerative practices locally in a way that serves the farmers and their communities.

 
 

CULTIVARS

H10, H3, H18 , Starmaya , Marseillaise

elevation

1180 to 1280 meters


NOTABLE

The whole farm is planted in terraces because of its slope, they do not use herbicides, and pest control is based on biological products, they do not plant in the entire river bank and maintain a distance of 10 meters from the shore. All their coffee is shade grown protected with mosses. They plant new coffee with Canavalia that provides nitrogen and organic matter. Every year they make use of the coffee pulp to enable decomposing of the microorganism that help him to make the fertilizer.

PROCESSING

Natural and Anaerobic : Coffee cherries are hand picked and sorted before laying them on the African drying beds for the Natural process. The video below is representative of the Anaerobic fermentation processes where the barrel is prepared and suspended in water to maintain the low temperatures for 48-72 hours before taken to the drying beds.

 

  • The price you pay for Gonzalo’s natural coffee p/kg. We agreed on this price directly with the farmers, disregarding the volatile US Coffee C price.

  • Here the farm gate is inclusive of the all the costs incurred by the farmer to also deliver the coffees to the mill. Depending on whether the farmer owns a mill or drying facility, we have facilitated a contract in cooperation with our farmer friends and exporting partners to invoke the rest of services needed to get the green coffee ready for export. All the farmers in the Nicaraguan ensemble are paid a fixed price for their coffees (Washed/Natural). Farmers are paid premium price for their experimental processing methods.

  • Santa Lucila is a dry milling and export facility. It offers various services including milling, grain pro & jute bag purchase and designing, exporting the coffees between Nicaragua and Netherlands. Depending on the services required by the farmer, Santa Lucila is flexible in it’s arrangement. Gonzalo requires all the services offered by Santa Lucila.

  • International shipping from Ocotal Nicaragua to Rotterdam, Netherlands. It is inclusive of freight, customs, insurance and warehousing costs.

  • Average financing cost owed to (mostly social) lenders. This ensures immediate payment to the farmers when the coffee leaves the farm or port.This is also includes stock surchage, storage fee and customs

  • A standard TSU premium on all coffees designated exclusively to accelerate farmers’ own regenerative agriculture project..Read more about the regenerative projects done by Gonzalo here. (Link coming soon).

  • This Side Up compensation for spending time and resources importing this coffee. Our work includes year-round contact with producers, managing export, shipping, import, warehousing, grading, sampling, finding and keeping roasting partners for Gonzalo. € 1,22 is This Side Up’s Model 1 markup. For a full overview of our modular margin construction, see the Trade Models page

 

Contact Gonzalo Castillo

Get in touch with Gonzalo directly on Whatsapp. He speaks Spanish only.

CONTACT : Gonzalo Castillo

TEL  +505 8237 5926

 

Photo gallery

You may use these videos freely to promote Gonzalo’s coffee amongst your customers.