The El Neto coffee, which is grown in the beautiful mountains of Nicaragua touts flavours of orange, strawberry and apricot. The aromas that come from each fully roasted bag provides a lively, bright and complex flavour in each cup.
How the Complex Flavours of the El Neto #2 Coffee Are Produced
Ripe caturra cherries are handpicked and sorted between December and March. There is a wet mill on the farm where the ripe red cherry is deposited and weighed from each picker.
The cherries then enter floatation tanks where ripes and unripes are separated by density. The selected cherries are then pulped in a Penagos eco-pulper to remove the skin from each fruit. Then the water is recycled and reused in this process before entering oxidation ponds to remove bi-products.
The sticky pulped beans then enter fermentation tanks for between 14 and 18 hours before being washed in channels. The washed beans are then taken to the drying patios at the nearby mill of San Ignacio where they are regularly turned by rake to ensure good, even drying. The overall drying process will take around 10 to 12 days.
Campbell and Syme Roasters
It's roasters like Joe Syme and his mum Patricia of Campbell and Syme that have one main focus in mind to serve specialty coffee roasted (like the El Neto #2) to bring out its best qualities.
This month, they have worked especially hard with their team to provide the best roasted speciality coffees for Blue Coffee Box.
Together with their team of 8 dedicated, passionate and unique people, they work tirelessly to roast and serve the best coffee possible. Their approach to providing these types of roasted coffees comes in the form of teaching workshops that provide the best roasting techinques out there, and this month, they are sharing them with all of you!
Nicaragua - Where Great Coffee is Born
Nicaragua has historically undergone periods of turmoil that have hindered the development of the coffee sector in the country. Many experienced coffee farmers fled during the years of Sandinista rule, during the late 1970s to 1990s.
When the political scene changed and many of those farmers returned, and Nicaragua's production escalated. However, the devastating effects of Hurricane Mitch and the prolonged world coffee price crisis created further giant-sized hurdles for a country that can, and now does, produce some extremely desirable coffees.
The municipality of San Fernando is located around 24 kilometres from the region's capital Ocotal' and of the 10,000 residents, the vast majority are coffee farmers. This beautiful area is home to the stunning and aptly named Finca El Bosque' (which translates to the forest') and has been owned by Julio Peralta since1991.
The farm lies on the mountainous slopes in the Nuevo Segovia region on the border of Honduras, providing spectacular views of the surrounding forests and mountains of Jicaro and San Fernando.
The environment is incredibly wild and coffee grows densely amongst shade trees of banana and inga, the potassium provided to the soil by the banana trees is elemental to the nutrition of the coffee on the farm.
El Bosque produces coffee at altitudes of between 1250 to 1560 metres above sea level and has an annual rainfall of approximately 1800 millimetres.
These factors, along with Julio's inherited passion and dedication for growing exceptional coffee, combine to produce lively, bright and complex flavour nuances in the cup.
Coffee contributes considerably to Nicaragua's GDP, providing 40,000+ coffee farming families with livelihoods and permanent work. IT's a country with a 50% unemployment rate. 80% of the 6 million population live on $2 a day, coffee provides substantial social impact.
