Continual improvement is something every farmer we work with strives for but few have the level of commitment that Eleane Mierisch does. This is Fratello Coffee's 5th year working with the Miersch family and have written about them a lot. We wanted to focus on Eleane in this post as she is a big reason for the consistent quality coffee coming from their farms and why we love Nicaraguan Coffee.
Eleane is the second oldest child of Erwin Mierisch Sr. who was one of the early leaders in specialty coffee in Nicaragua. Eleane gave up a nursing career to take care of her ailing mother, that was over 6 years ago and though her mother passed she has stayed to help with the family business.
She oversees the family farms in Nicaragua but her real passion is the dry mill in Matagalpa. She told us that “We are still quite a small dry mill so the focus has to be on quality.” And that focus on quality really shines through in the cup.
Her favorite job in the dry mill is the quality control, and to maintain that she repeatedly cups the lots that are processed there. The other highlights of her job include experimenting with the multiple different drying techniques and most importantly maintaining and building the team of people that work at the dry mill. Her goal is that everyone enjoys working there and finds it rewarding, because if the workers are enjoying their jobs it is much easier to keep the high qualities of products coming out that her customers have come to expect.
One of the ways she is improving is by putting up African Raised beds as an alternative way to dry the coffee, before this the coffee was dried on a concrete patio. The Raised bed is a drying style that many believe increase the pleasant acidities in coffee. Making them stand out even more from the majority of coffee coming from Nicaragua.
The biggest way that she is improving is by communicating with her clients and finding out what types of coffees and processing methods they prefer what drying method they are most interested in. In this way she is learning what other methods her clients have seen from other countries on how to process so she can not only tailor the best coffee to each of her clients, but it also gives her more ideas on how to experiment and make the coffee better for everyone.
Our trip to Nicaragua - coffee
Fratello Coffee Roasters recently visited Erwin Mierisch and his family in Nicaragua to tour their coffee estates in order to choose the next Lot of coffee to bring to Calgary. (more…)
Direct Trade Coffee - Nicaraguan Los Placeres
We traveled to Nicaragua in December and fell in love with the people, the culture, and the food. Read about our trip and find out why we think this is one of our favourite regions in Central America.
Chris and myself along with Nan & Gerry (of Good Earth Cafes) just finished visiting the Meirsch family in Nicaragua. Together we toured Matagalpa and Jinotega to see their 5 unique coffee estates, each show casing a different cup characteristic that stand out from one another.
The Merisch family is a 3rd generation coffee family that currently evolves 2 generations, with a 3rd (or the 4th in total) not far behind. It was easy to see how close this family is to one another and how important family is to them. When staying at Erwin Merisch’s Seniors home, you were always in the company of his siblings and wives, their children as well as cousins. We certainly didn’t feel like outsiders either, as we were welcomed with open arms.
This is an exciting addtion to our coffee selections. This is our new Direct Trade Nicaraguan coffee that is replacing the old Selva Negra variety. Look for this coffee in our offerings by the 3rd week of June.
We found this farm a few months ago when traveling with Erwin Mierisch and his family. During this visit, we went to all 5 farms, and began offering the Limoncillo Pacamara Peaberry varietal right away. Their Limoncillo farm just took second place at this year's COE competition, however, took the higest price.
Our next offering from the Mierisch family farms is from the smallest farm they own Finca Mama Mina Estate. This farm is affectionately named for their grandmother Mina McEwan. Trees and mountains surround the farm in every direction, and sits at an elevation of 1200 - 1350 meters. This farm has lots of daily cloud cover which provides natural shade ontop of what is produced by the tree canopy's.
They are currently producing 75% Caturra and 25% Catuai on this farm. They also have their own wet mill, and dry all of their beans on site with raised beds. This is one of their younger farms, but is producing only "Grade A" coffee and is fast becoming a favorite of the family.
