Campo de Amor (Madriz) - Nicaragua

Finca Campo de Amor is located at the very North West of Nicaragua in Madriz Department. Campo de Amor means ‘Field of Love’ in Spanish. We aren’t sure how the farm came by the name – maybe we are better off NOT knowing – but we do know that you will love this coffee.

The farm ranges along around 4 hectares at 1,250 to 1,320 meters above sea level. It is one of the few farms in the region that still have extensive plantations of Typica and Bourbon, which the owner, Rene Martin Padilla, has cultivated despite a very bad experience with rust in 2013. With very cultivation, Rene has managed to maintain his crop and produce some fantastic lots in recent years.

Las Sabanas is a very dry zone and water can be particularly short during the harvest season. Farmers in the region have learned to cope with these conditions by perfecting Natural processing techniques. Rene, for instance, processes the majority of his coffee - up to 60% - using the Natural process. He picks only the very ripest cherries and then meticulously sorts through them, removing all damaged or underripe cherries. After sorting, the coffee is delivered to his concrete patios, where it ‘pre-dries’ for four days before finally moving to the farm’s African beds. It will spend between 15 and 20 days on these beds, slowly being turned again and again, the bean taking on the fruity sweetness of the cherry as it dries. Finally, when it reaches 10.5% moisture content, the coffee is moved to bags and eventually is delivered to the dry mill to prepare it for export.

Rene Martin Padilla is one of those coffee lovers who is always talking about his farm - justifying why he continues to produce Bourbon and Typica, even though they require much more care, talking about how to further fine-tune his processing, discussing the best methods of fertilizing and pruning. So far, he hasn’t been able to achieve recognition for his coffee on a global scale. We at Mercanta hope to remedy that!