About the farm:

The farm “Los Gigueros” is located in Las Sabanas, Madriz, next to the nature reserve La Patasti of Pueblo Nuevo. It is a zone of attractive landscape for its forests, climate and location. From the farm you can observe the surrounding landscape and enjoy the songs of the birds. All the work done on the farm is in harmony with the environment. Having on mind that it is a nature reserve we have to implement agricultural practices that improve and liberate from contamination our soil, rivers, and springs that emerge from the mountains where we harvest our coffee with care throughout the year. Once the harvest is done we employee the work force that identifies with our practices and knows our effective and efficient picking methods. The proper picking is one of our secrets and from this phase we select the beans for a quality coffee that can delight the best coffee consumers of the world. Having on mind that the picking period is from December until March, that is colder and with breeze, we pick the coffee per areas. We have a de-pulp manual machine, water from springs and strainers. The following step is the washing in the dry mill 48km from Ocotal, where we continue the care of each lot by drying it on the sun with care. With this phase our responsibility for the quality is finished. We transport the coffee to the dry mill La Florencia where, when the coffee has the proper humidity, they label it and store it adequately; at the end they cup it and prepare for exportation. I bought the farm with my resources in 2002. From my childhood I get to know all the activities and phases of the coffee production process. For this reason was easy for me to adapt to the work which attracts me and with which I feel identified. The total area of the terrain is 60 mz, and at the moment I have 15 mz with productive coffee, with an approximate production of 15-2- QQ per manzana. The varieties are caturra, Bourbón, catuahi Yellow and catuahi rojjo, maracatura and maragogype.

About his family:

My sons are my family. They are studying and for this I have to dedicate myself to the farm, to keep the production and the quality of the coffee high. My ancestors were also coffee producers, with the change of the Government in 1979 their land was confiscated, and thus my farm is totally a product of my efforts, I didn’t inherit any coffee plantation.

What is the secret of your success?

The secret is in all the work done in the proper time and with care, involving the team that makes possible the production chain (planting, variety, fertilization, picking, drying, cupping, etc). Without keeping out God and the nature that are offering us the soil, the climate, the altitude, the forests, etc.

How do you feel being a winner of the Cup of Excellence Nicaragua 2010?

It is a pride for me to have won an award in the Cup of Excellence competition 2010. It is an incentive to continue my efforts and to believe that we have coffee of a really good quality in our area that until recently was hardly known. Her experience in the Cup of Excellence: It is in opportunity for the coffee producers. Through the Cup of Excellence the quality of the Nicaragua n coffee become recognized and through this competition we can reach better prices and have direct contacts with the buyers, and thus year by year we can have our quality product worldwide recognized. The International judges of the Cup of Excellence have discovered that Nicaragua has quality coffee. In the previous years this was not recognized and national buyers were paying us any price that they wanted.