The largest country in Central America, Nicaragua is known as ‘The Land of Lakes and Volcanoes’—in fact, it boasts more than 25 volcanoes (eight of which are active!) and 14 crater lakes. Some 95% of coffee in Nicaragua is shade grown, in which a canopy of trees is used to encourage slow and more complex cherry development as well as promote biodiversity. Many farmers choose productive shade trees that can also be used as a secondary income stream.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Nicaragua was severely impacted by a series of extreme climate events that decimated the country’s coffee industry. Over the course of several days in 1998, Hurricane Mitch drenched Central America, killing over 11,000 people, mainly in Honduras and Nicaragua. Landslides, winds, and heavy rain washed away coffee plantations, destroying an estimated 30% of Nicaragua’s production, as well as roads and other infrastructure.
This was followed by a period of severe drought in Nicaragua, which coincided with a coffee price crash due to high production in other countries. The price crisis of the early 2000s caused many producers to declare bankruptcy, unable to make a living let alone rebuild their farms after the devastation of Hurricane Mitch and the droughts that followed.
In 2002, Nicaragua became the third country to host a Cup of Excellence green coffee competition. The Alliance for Coffee Excellence brought the CoE to Nicaragua as a way to help the country’s coffee industry recover: farmers submitted 285 samples to be judged, with the best 23 being selected for auction. The highest price received, $11.75 per pound was 20 times the commodity price at the time, and offered the world a glimpse of what Nicaraguan coffee could be.
Since then, the CoE has spread to most other producing countries. The competition has proven instrumental in reframing coffee as something worth paying high prices for, and has helped shine a light on coffee farmers in Nicaragua and beyond as some of the most crucial contributors in the industry.
Over the years the importance of CoE to Nicaragua’s coffee sector has continued to grow, and has attracted a younger generation interested in making a name for themselves through their harvests. Cafetos de Segovia (whom we source our Nicaraguan coffee from through Falcon Coffee) and their partner farms participate in the competition every year, often placing highly, while the winning lots have consistently come from the Nueva Segovia region.
