personal coffee passport
Google Amsterdam Headquarters
MOONSHOT COFFEE BAR
Your coffee farms: Santa Lucila Estates
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
About the farmers
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.
At Santa Lucila dry mill, the lots from these estates come in and are cupped and classified into taste categories. They then leave it to the customers, in this case This Side Up, to ask for a certain signature profile. We decided to recreate the two flavours of the blends we used to have in our previous partnership, and it ‘s remarkable how closely the Rojo and Amarillo blends conform to our wishes.
Santa Lucila - 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. The roast time is 10 minutes. After the first crack, the coffee is roasted for a remainder of 25% of the time.
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.
Background of this coffee in the Netherlands
Some of This Side Ups older clients might remember our Nicaraguan single family lots, traceable farm lots that we offered from 2015 to 2018. Sadly, because grave mismanagement of our then export ally, we had to pull out and leave this country which we hold so dear - but it was when Arjan van der Hoek from Bean Brothers introduced us to Rina and René Paguaga that we regained hope. We were immediately drawn to their transparency, care for quality - but most of all, their integrity.
Vidita means "little life" in Spanish and is inspired by how 97 year old founder René senior used to call Rina's and René's mother, Carolina. Their third generation business used to sell all their production to “Big Coffee”, but when Rina got to experience firsthand what actually happened to their carefully harvested and well-nourished coffee, she was shocked: "they were really not paying attention to details. I said to myself: this coffee doesn't represent my country, and we decided to do something about it." Although their estate is more than 60 years old, it was not until 2007 that they became fully independent. Once they broke free, the results became palpable almost immediately when the coffee processed at their mill won several international recognitions and began selling as specialty coffee. "Nicaraguan coffee can be the best in the world," says Rina, "and we really want to offer the best of what this country has to offer, and we believe we're on the right path".
Today, Santa Lucila dry mill and their brand Café Vidita is the heart of the operations of their family's five estates and a gathering center for producers in the region. Besides providing good prices and fair wages for a region where it’s very difficult to make a living, the Paguaga family manages healthy ecosystems and a deeply studied production system. In light of the country’s history, it would have been much easier in their shoes to turn away from coffee production as many others did. Their commitment to it, even in the most extreme circumstances, is admirable to say the least. A partner like this makes us excited about reestablishing This Side Up in our beloved Nicaragua - here’s to new a beginning!