Check out our Shipping Rates - check here for our holiday shipping scheduleAnother trip to Central America to see the coffee during harvest and milling, and to seek out new small lots for purchase. Click on a small picture to see a big one.
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Incredibly healthy coffee trees on the Limoncillo farm under a heavy shade canopy. We came to Nicaragua to visit the Meirisch family farms and this is what we saw. |
An afternoon break for the Meirisch dudes; R to L; Irwin, Steve, Irwin Sr. |
A nature walk at Limoncillo Estate to the waterfall. What? You don't have a waterfall on *your* estate? No, those fake ones in the 'burbs don't count. |
On the waterfall path. Some gnarly tree trunk and coffee branches. |
Tropical foilage and flowers on the path. This is about 10' tall x 4" diameter. |
More of the same ... yawn ... where's the nearest Burger King? |
A favorite of mine, timber bamboo. This is about 3-4 inch canes and 30-50' tall. The variegation is like Alphonse Karr, a loosely clumping type of Bambusa Multiplex, but this is larger. |
Catuai or Caturra (my notes unclear) at Limoncillo Farm. Limoncillo is in Matagalpa in a region generally called Yasica Norte. |
This is one of the projects I came to see, the Java cultivar planted at Limoncillo. This tree has a more upright form which is fairly easy to note. |
I know these look unusual, but they are simply at a stage of ripening between yellow and red. I do think it is odd that with the Java I could see both green and red on the same cherry. In general the tree has a low yield. |
The tips (new leaf) on the Java ranges from bronze to this extraordinary red, something else I have never seen. |
The parchment coffee. Another surprise is this elongated and pointed form, Ethiopian in it's character. I expected Java to be one of the highly hybridized, modern types actually grown in Java. What I think we have here is one of the early types taken from Yemen or Ethiopia to Java. |
Another coffee that the Mierisch family does a great job with is the large bean Pacamara. Note the slightly pointed form on the tip of the cherry. Pacamara is not an entirely stable varietal and 15% reverts back to Maragogype or Pacas types. |
Pacamara parchment (pergamino) drying on screens. This is averaging around 19/64ths screen size - very large. |
Yellow Pacamara! An interesting Pacamara note. I was told in El Salvador there are 8 "strains" of Pacamara with differing cup results. One is known to be somewhat onion-scallion in character ... something I have tasted in Pacamara coffees I don't like. Others are simply mild and boring. Meirischs Pacamara is awesome and lively. |
Irwin Sr. and one of the farm foreman next to an oversized Maragogype tree. |
Picker's basket with some really nicely selected ripe cherry. |
Bags of cherry are usually walked from the nearby picking areas to an area where they can be loaded on the truck. |
The coffee cherry is then driven to the mill. These trucks have massive capacity, and negotiate some pretty rough roads. Near Limoncillo, one ran off a road and rolled, but the driver was unhurt. |
The truck either has bulk or bagged cherry. In either case, each cultivar is kept separate as they are put into a water-filled receiving tank. |
At Limoncillo they have been adding an enzyme to the water to help initialize the breakdown of the mucilage layer, the muciligo. |
Fresh cherry washed into the depulper that removes the outer skin. |
The mucilage-covered seed and the skins are washed into a criba that separates the two, and removes some floaters (dead, hollow seeds) and underripe. |
The resulting coffee is washed out into a tile-lined cement tank to ferment off the muciligo. |
Washing the coffee down the channel after fermentation at the Limoncillo Mill. |
I'm voting NO too... dammit |
We left Limoncillo farm for another Mierisch farm, Las Placeras. This is also in Matagalpa Yasica Sur. An outbuilding at Placeras. |
Irwin likes Placeras because it is where the livestock is kept. Here, a Peruvian Paso horse, supposedly with such a smooth ride you can drink a cup of coffee while riding! |
Not all livestock are pretty princess ponies with jewels in their forehead. Sorry gals ... |
The prize-winning cattle at Las Placeras. I thought these were Brahma but my Brasilian pal says they are another Indian type. I need to take better notes... |
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