Nicaragua Las Naranjas

This is a washed caturra lot from Las Naranjas. Cafetos de Segovia is a dry mill located in Ocotal and surrounded by coffee land, making it easy for producers to deliver the wet parchment the same day as they harvest and process it. In 2015, a local producer family realised that the prices paid for coffee cherries in the region were too low and that they could produce high-quality coffee on their own farm. They decided to create a dry mill to add value to their product, and that mill is now run by sisters Martha and Ana, along with their team.

The family own a few farms that were inherited from Martha and Ana's father. Like many properties in the area (in the north, bordering Honduras), the story of the farms ownership is a complex one. From 1975-1979 the Nicaraguan revolution hit the entire country, but it was even more intense at the Honduran border, forcing the family to emigrate to the USA. They returned to Ocotal six years later to find that their house and much of their farmland had been seized by the government. Only the house was returned to them they had lost more than 100 manzanas (70ha) of coffee farm.

The dry mill services their farms and greenhouse which they built in 2020 to grow experimental lots and more delicate varieties but also the coffee of some relatives and a few non-related producers from the area. In total, 47 other producers work with Cafetos de Segovia. During peak harvest, up to 300 quintales per day is delivered to the mill, which has a drying capacity of 3,000 quintales at any one time (1 quintal = approximately 46kg green beans). Up to 30 people work at the mill during the season.