Doña Maria - filter coffee from Nicaragua

In 2023, Doña Maria will sell her coffee directly for the first time. She also knows for the first time who buys her coffee: us. We came into contact with Doña Maria through our partners from BridAzul, Claudia and Tim. Benjamin was there in April and met Doña Maria. Their coffee is smooth, chocolaty and reminds us of yellow plums.

Doña Maria - Coffee information

Roasted for : all common filter methods such as: hand filter, AeroPress, French Press

Origin : Finca La Ciruela, Dipilto, Nicaragua

Producer : Doña Maria

Varieties : Caturra Amarillo and Caturra Rojo, 100% Arabica varieties

Post-harvest process : honey - the coffee cherries were sorted, depulped and dried in the shade with the mucilage on the seeds for 18 days.

Arrived at the roastery: June 2023

All of our coffees are shipped as whole beans.

Brewing recommendation Doña Maria: Hario V60

Tell me more about Doña Maria

Doña Maria is 64 years old and runs a small farm in the far corner of Dipilto on the border with Honduras. The farm is 1 manzana in size, i.e. approx. 0.7ha. Doña Maria has spent her whole life on the farm and cared for Finca La Ciruela so much that Benjamin came back in April and spoke of the "most beautiful farm" he had ever seen. The farm is 1300 meters high and surrounded by plum trees, hence the name: la Ciruela. And: the coffee actually reminds us of plums. Doña Maria's children live in Ocotal, but her son Donal still lives on the farm. Donal does the accounting for BridAzul and helps his mother look after the finca.

Why did we buy this coffee?

In February 2023 Claudia calls us and says that they are now working with Doña Maria and want to give her access to a new market. Would we like to have your coffee? Without knowing what it tasted like, we agreed. Doña Maria has never been able to sell her coffee directly; for more than forty years her coffee has been mixed into a blend. And if Claudia senses that this could be a long-term story, we believe her. We buy half of her harvest, 300kg, and look forward to the first chapter of a new story with her.

Why does coffee taste the way it does?

Tim and Claudia did the processing for Doña Maria for the first time. In order to get to know the coffee and its potential, Tim carried out two post-harvest processes: he depulped half of the coffee, fermented it under water and then washed it, depulped the other half and dried it in the shade with the mucilage on the seeds (honey processed). We bought 150kg of each type of preparation and mixed the coffees into a 50/50 blend. The tangy acidity comes from the washed coffee, while the honey brings the chocolaty and light stone fruit notes.

How do we roast this coffee?

As a 12.5kg batch on our 30kg roaster. In 9:30 we roast the coffee through, with a development time of 40 seconds. We don't use any gas for the first 40 seconds, we do a so-called soak before we heat up the coffee with 60% gas supply. In this way we achieve a more uniform roasting of the two different types of preparation. We leave the coffee “alone” for up to 7 minutes before gradually removing the heat and letting it drop quite steeply after the first crack.