The new-and-improved Nicaragua Don Zeledon - Organic/Fair Trade
It all started at Hard Times Cafe in Minneapolis, MN. In late 2002, I spent a little time in the Twin Cities (while working for Alterra) and would occasionally have lunch at a café near the University of Minnesota called Hard Times. Hard Times is a pretty unique place that offers great food and exclusively serves French press coffee. One day, one of those mugs of French press coffee really (I mean really) stood out. I asked the guy behind the counter where it came from and he told me it was an organic/Fair Trade coffee from Nicaragua roasted by a local company in Minneapolis.
I immediately called Alterra and gushed about how great this stuff was. We then contacted one of our importers and were able to determine that this mind-blowing coffee was from two small cooperatives in the Reserva Natural Miraflor in the Segovia region in Nicaragua. And better yet, there were still ten bags still available. We bought 'em.
I didn't start my current job as Alterra's green coffee buyer until October 2003, and looking back, this was the first time Alterra purchased any coffee solely based on my assessment. It was pretty nerve-racking actually. All of a sudden there were 1,540 pounds of Nicaraguan coffee on the way to Alterra based on my my recommendation! I hoped I was right.
At the time we didn't roast much coffee from Nicaragua, as the country itself was just starting to emerge as a specialty origin. The exporter with which we work in Nicaragua, PRODECOOP, started in 1993 (the same time as Alterra) and has always had an equal passion for quality as they have for Fair Trade - a fact we learned first-hand during a recent visit to their offices and dry mill.
Miraflor, the coffee we have been buying since 2003, comes from two of about 55 cooperatives representing nearly 4,000 coffee farmers in Nueva Segovia and Madríz that sell their coffee through PRODECOOP under Fair Trade terms. All of the coffees from PRODECOOP are in high demand, so I decided I wanted to visit the mill at the end of the harvest, taste all of the coffees that came in (including the Miraflor), and pick the best stuff. Here's a look at what I had to pick from.
Most of the coffees we tasted were excellent, but the coffees from the areas surrounding a town named San Juan del Río Coco stood out among the rest. They possessed a certain X-factor: an echoing, resonating quality that lingered on well into the finish. Once we had identified our favorites it was time to jump in to the bed of the pick-up and head out to meet the farmers.
The thing I was most impressed with after spending some time with the farmers was the tremendous amount of cooperative spirit they had, combined with a true feeling of pride for the quality of their coffee.
One of my traveling companions, John Cossette from Royal Coffee, said it best, "They are incredibly technified for being so rustic!" So true. Even though the farmers may not all have their own depulpers or the fanciest drying equipment, they still make it happen by either sharing equipment or manufacturing it out of whatever materials are available. They also employ sophisticated organic farming practices, analyze their soils to determine which organic fertilizers and supplements to buy, and have started a centrally-located worm composting site where they compost coffee pulp and manure.
The names of the three coops from which we purchased coffee this year are José Alfredo Zeledón, Rigoberto López Pérez, and 17 de Octubre. Most of the coops are named after a Nicaraguan war hero or martyr, honoring the men from their region. In the spirit of that recognition, we have decided to name the coffee that we buy through this relationship "Don Zeledón" after one of Nicaragua's most famous heroes, Benjamín Zeledón. You can find Benjamín on the 5,000 Cordoba bill, if you're curious. That's right, he's money!
There is a lot of very high-quality Nicaraguan coffee out there, mostly due to the strict quality standards that were instilled during the emergence of Fair Trade. Nowadays, the best coffees from Nicaragua are very unique and among the best in the world. Don Zeledón is no exception - and I say that with far more confidence than I did when I bought those first ten bags!
This week we received the landed samples of the winning coffees from our visit to Popayán, Cauca, Colombia, and they were everything we remembered and more! Molasses, candied orange, butter-rum and tropical fruit were just a few of the adjectives used to describe them. The coffee should arrive sometime in mid-December, so keep an eye out - if you want first dibs, make sure you're signed up for our 
It was a weekend full of roasting, blending, sampling, changing the blend a bit and trying again. Congratulations to John and his team for placing 2nd in the competition!! By the way, since we use Probat roasters here at Alterra, we decided to bring along some "MY OTHER CAR IS A PROBAT" bumper stickers that we created just for this event. Thanks to Kevin, our Creative Director, and Tracie, our Retail Buyer, for helping me get the stickers in time for the event. They were a huge hit!! In the end, the Roaster's Guild Retreat is a great opportunity for our department to kick back a little, have some fun as a group and bask in the wonderful world of coffee that we all love so much.