Most "bean to cup" stories end at a café. Ours ends at a container on a ship, because that is where our work stops and a roaster's begins. We grow, process, and cup coffee; we don't roast it. What follows is everything that happens before the green coffee reaches your roastery. It's the part of the chain a lot of importers never get to see, and the part that decides what you can actually pull out of the roast.
We run all of it ourselves, on our own farms and in our own mills in Jinotega, Matagalpa, and Nueva Segovia. No broker sits between the soil and the sample on your cupping table.
It starts on the tree
Coffee is slow. A seedling spends its first months in a shaded nursery and takes three to four years before it carries fruit worth picking. Our farms sit between roughly 1,200 and 1,650 meters, where cool nights and volcanic soil slow the cherry's development and concentrate sugars. That elevation is why a single harvest can hand a roaster several different cups.
Across our farms we grow classic and experimental varieties, from Caturra, Bourbon-family types, and Parainema to Pacamara, Maracaturra, Geisha, and Java. Each one behaves differently on the same slope, which is the first lever we have on flavor.
Harvest: pick ripe, or pay for it later
Our harvest runs from November through March. Cherries don't ripen all at once, so pickers move through the same tree several times over the season, taking only the deep-red, fully ripe fruit. It is slow and labor-intensive, and it is the single cheapest way to protect a lot's quality. Strip a branch for speed and you fold underripe and overripe cherries into the same batch, and no amount of careful processing downstream fixes that.
Wet mill: pulp, ferment, wash
Ripe cherries reach our wet mill the same day they're picked. We depulp, ferment, and wash on site, which keeps the fruit from sitting and developing off-flavors before processing even starts. The washed process is our backbone: it strips the fruit away early and gives you a clean, bright cup that shows the terroir rather than hiding it.
We also run naturals, honeys, and a set of experimental lots (anaerobic, carbonic maceration, and barrel-aged among them) for buyers who want more fruit, more body, or something genuinely unusual on the menu.
Drying: patios and raised beds
From the wet mill, coffee goes to dry down to around 10–12% moisture. Washed lots dry on patios; honeys and naturals go onto raised beds where air moves around the whole cherry and we can turn them by hand. Drying is where a lot of quality is quietly won or lost. Dry too fast and you get brittle, uneven beans; too slow and you risk mold and fermented notes.
Dry mill: hull, sort, grade
Once stable, the coffee is hulled to remove the parchment, then graded and sorted by size and density. This is the step that makes a lot look and roast consistently. We do it in-house, so a lot never leaves our control between the farm and the export bag.
The cupping lab decides
Every microlot is scored in our own lab before it's offered. We cup for acidity, body, flavor, and aftertaste, and we don't put a lot in front of a buyer we wouldn't stand behind. Our current lots land in the 83–89 range, and each one ships to you with its cupping notes and processing record attached, not as a marketing line but as the data you need to plan a roast.
Farm to export, in one operation
Because we own every step (farm, wet mill, dry mill, cupping lab, and export), a lot traces back to a specific farm, elevation, variety, and process. That is the whole point of buying direct from a producer: fewer hands, a shorter story to verify, and someone who can answer a question about a specific bag because they were there for all of it.
The cup is your part. Everything before it is ours.
See our current green coffee lots, read how the operation works, or request samples. Each one ships with cupping notes and full processing data.
Related: Secrets of the Nicaraguan Coffee Harvest.