Central America's poorest coffee-producing country (Nicaragua)-Matagalpa

Nicaragua is an economically backward agricultural country, is one of the poorest countries in Central America, the unemployment rate is very high, people live in poverty, and coffee is Nicaragua's pillar industry, producing nearly 100,000 tons of coffee beans every year. Due to the poor economic foundation, the coffee industry is still relatively backward, and coffee farmers are also in a relatively poor state.

Although Nicaragua is a country with a large territory in Central America, it is not a big producer in the coffee world, and its output and reputation are much weaker than that of its neighbor Costa Rica. But the high-quality Nicaraguan coffee is in the forefront of coffee beans in the world and enjoys a good reputation.

Traditional Nicaraguan coffee farmers are used to using water washing method for subsequent processing of coffee fruits. Coffee farmers are more accustomed to using water washing to ensure that the flavor of raw coffee beans is more stable and clean. it was not until about 2009 that the traditional attitudes of coffee farmers changed and began to try processing methods such as full sun and honey in more areas.

Matagalpa, which we mentioned earlier, is the coffee producing area that produces the best quality coffee in Nicaragua, and there is a heavyweight coffee estate worth introducing-the lemon tree (El Limoncillo). The manor is located in the plateau of Matagalpa between 950m and 1300m above sea level, and there are towering coniferous forests around the coffee trees, providing shade for the growth of coffee trees. This allows coffee trees to be exposed to sunlight while protecting them from being burned by the scorching sun.

In order to ensure the quality of coffee, the manual picking method is used to pick the fully ripe fruits one by one, which usually takes three times to complete. Although the manual picking method has high labor cost and low picking efficiency, it can greatly protect the plant from being hurt in the picking process, and the mature fruit will have better sweetness at the same time. The efforts of the producers have not been in vain, and the coffee from Lemon Manor won the second place in the Nicaragua Excellence Cup COE National Competition in 2008. This bean has a beautiful appearance, delicate and rich flavor after washing, with aromas of fruit, vanilla and cream, and has gained more attention since then.

Lemon Tree Manor also processes coffee in a honey-treated way. After the coffee fruit is actually picked, the coffee with its exocarp removed is put on the African shed to dry. Compared with the traditional way of placing coffee directly on the ground to dry coffee, using African shed to dry coffee can reduce more pollution in the drying process, avoid producing more miscellaneous smell, and finally improve the quality of coffee. Honey-treated coffee beans have more attractive tropical fruit flavors.

The coffee beans with exquisite flavor presented in front of us, whether from the links of picking, planting, processing, or later packaging and transportation, are all devoted to the good intentions of the producers, and in the process of making coffee as something in the cup, we should also treat it attentively.