THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS- a father’s dream

Moncho is a second generation coffee farmer. Growing up, Ramon was involved in farming because of his father’s passion towards agriculture. He really liked spending many days on their family farm. His father’s love for coffee equally inspired Moncho to pursue and become an agronomist. He and his father dreamed about their coffees finding homes and being recognized internationally. Their main dream was to export their coffee through direct trade which is now being fulfilled in their partnership with This Side Up and Santa Lucila. They have two different farms in the same mountain range - La Dueña in Dipilto, Nueva Segovia and Montelin in Jalapa, Nueva Segovia. As an agronomist and quality controller, Moncho has been keen to learn new processes. He is a strong example of a “serious farmer” in a country where commodity coffee farming is becoming less and less profitable. Unfortunately, a year ago his father passed away leaving Moncho with his spirit and their shared dream. Moncho strives to fulfill this shared dream and continue his father’s legacy through by producing high quality specialty coffee. Moncho continues to use his father’s dry mill and drying facilities for his own harvests. He hopes to get his brother involved in coffee farming and aspires to teach him the same way their father taught him when he was growing up.

Moncho is a good friend of the Almendarez family and Byron. We did not meet him before 2022, but his inclusion in the group was natural and a given once we met himBy producing different qualities, understanding quality and most of all, being a loyal and transparent partner, he is keen to create a different future for Nicaraguan coffee than what the general trend shows.

 
 

CULTIVARS

La Dueña:- Pacamara, Marsellesa, Parainema, Gesha and Sarchimor
Montelin-Pacamara, Parainema, Catimor T5296, Catuai, Gesha and Java

elevation

La Dueña - 1380 meters
Montelin- 1350 meters

NOTABLE

Coffee is intercropped with bananas and oranges. They utilize the coffee pulp as organic fertilizer. They practice agroforestry and are particular about the tree species which act as a nitrogen fixers for their soil. They conduct soil analysis every 2 years to understand the soil composition and essentially nutritional requirements to achieve better quality.

 

PROCESSING

Natural: Coffee cherries are harvested at their ripest point, selected and naturally processed. They are then driven to Santa Lucila in ventilated boxes, for dry milling, sorting and exporting. During the season, Silvio sometimes makes around two round trips from his estate, to the Drymill. This is a long process, since not so many boxes fit on the truck and the dirt road is bumpy and complicated to drive.

TASTIFY™ CUPPING NOTES

2024 LANDED SAMPLES REPORT

Juan Ramon "Moncho" Diaz - washed
Juan Ramon "Moncho" Diaz - honey

 

  • The price you pay for Moncho’s coffee Pacamara 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. This farmer requires all the services offered by Santa Lucila. Moncho requires only export services from 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 Ramon 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 Moncho Diaz. € 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 JUAN RAMON DIAZ

Juan speaks Spanish and English and can be reached directly through calls or Whatsapp.

TEL : +505 8431 2195

 

Photo gallery

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