MONTHLY SPECIAL - NICARAGUA, LOS PAPALES PACAMARA

Every month, our resident Q Grader and third-generation Wogan, James, searches the world to find a coffee that is ‘weird and wonderful’, and truly excites. A micro-lot, a great back-story, an impressive cooperative, or a particularly unusual taste; once it's gone, it's gone.

We keep the prices of these extraordinary coffees down, so that you have the chance to try something that you might not be able to get your hands on otherwise. 

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This is a brilliant example of just how delicious the very special variety 'Pacamara' can be - it's a super complex coffee with bright upfront acidity and a seriously creamy body and mouthfeel, ending with a sticky sweetness.

A hybrid of the Pacas and Maragogype varietals, Pacamara is famous for being a truly huge bean - when a tasty one like this comes along, we're sure to snap it up!

Farm Spotlight: Los Papales

The López family have been growing coffee in Nicaragua for over a hundred years. It started with Vicente López López, who planted the family's first farms in the mountains of Datanlí, Jinotega. His son, Vicente López Herrera, carried it on and set up his own farm, Betania, which stayed in the family until it was confiscated during the conflict in the 1980s. Today the family runs two farms - Los Papales, and a new Betania named after the original.

Los Papales sits on the slopes of Cerro Chimborazo, one of the highest peaks in the area, and when farmed with a focus on agro-ecology and biodiversity, it's the perfect conditions for brilliant and high quality Arabica. The farm covers 210 hectares at 1,300-1,500m, growing Caturra, Red and Yellow Catuaí, Java and Pacamara. Everything is processed on site. The wet mill is built to use as little water as possible and can handle washed (fermented and unfermented) and semi-washed coffees. Drying is done slowly in greenhouses and under shade structures, which helps with consistency and shelf life. The farm also has its own dry mill, so the coffee is taken all the way to export-ready without leaving the family's hands, giving them full control over quality and full traceability.