dos Manzanas [matagalpa, Nicaragua]

Farming, harvesting, and processing are only part of the work of getting coffee into bags and hoppers and ultimately into your cup. Though most of that work was completed by the end of April, and my selections were finalized through cupping a couple weeks into May, we still needed to organize all the logistics for export and import. There are spreadsheets that indicate the exact quantities of each lot, with made up "marks" that are the official codes that represent those lots. The producers in Nicaragua had to decide which dry mills they wanted to work with to get the coffee into its final export green quality, and find an exporter that is registered and qualified to do the job at a reasonable rate. On my end, I worked with my friend Jim at La Minita again this year to do the import. He managed to consolidate with another farm, which will hopefully reduce our overall shipping cost. The container was loaded and left port yesterday. Last year it went on a truck overland into Honduras all the way to Puerto Cortez. But this year the coffee left Nicaragua on a ship from Puerto Corinto on the west coast, and will go through the Panama Canal to the port in Houston. I expect this will take about 30 days, and will then be subject to customs before being released. Then we can have all our coffee loaded onto a truck and shipped to Tulsa. New crop should be in our warehouse by mid-September.

On another note, there was some recent news that the president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, said he was canceling elections, implying that he would stay in power indefinitely. I had mixed feelings about this because I have a vague understanding of how politics works in everyday life there. While the Sandinista government (and lengthy rule of one leader) may not be ideal, the people for the most part seem to be able to go about their business as long as they keep their heads down and mouths shut. According to Luis, this stability is better than the violence that accompanies a coup, and in the past the opposition has been even worse when they assume power. Seems the US government is always trying to meddle, which goes all the way back to General Sandino's efforts. I read an interesting opinion piece about the recent news, which you can find here: https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/us-media-freakout-nicaragua

For info about the US involvement in Nicaragua, maybe read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Nicaragua

Andrew and I took a short trip down to Nicaragua April 29-May 3. We flew into Managua, where Luis picked us up and drove to the city of La Dalia, where we stayed in a hotel with running water and a fan. The following day we drove up the 4WD road 10km to a place near the hiking trail. Luis's truck has a problem with the transfer case or something and doesn't handle four wheel drive very well. So we charged up the rocky hills mostly in two wheel, spinning out and bumping along. The hike up the mountain is a good precursor to the views from the top. Luis had our farm manager, Roman, build two greenhouses to dry coffee on raised beds out of the weather. Roman's horse died of the flu and we had to get him another one. But Roman and his family are really taking to the area, even purchasing their own farm way up on the mountain high above Dos Manzanas, where his brother is living in a house they built. To get to Dos Manzanas from Roman's house, it's a jaunt across Finca Massif and down across a creek that I named The Rubicon. The trees are mostly healthy and growing taller. We thought we had nematodes, but now they think it's actually usarium, and we brought a fungicide called ALFAN 45 EC to treat it. Some trees have died from this, but not too many, thankfully. The harvest was lacking this past season. Last year they had my hopes up to get 3,000 pounds. In reality, we ended up with 400 plus 100 pounds of low quality coffee that we'll sell on the domestic market in Nicaragua. It rained a lot during the first half of the harvest season, and some of the coffee cherries were falling off the tree or splitting while still on the tree. This made things difficult for the coffee pickers, and the quality suffered because of it. I told Luis next time it rains during harvest, we need to pivot and produce only washed coffee until the weather improves. La Niña was responsible for the rains, and Luis predicts next year we will see a drought brought on by El Niño. I hope that helps. Maybe 1,500 pounds next year?

Andrew and I put new tags on trees and replaced ones that were disintegrating. I posted pictures on the Coffee Trees page.