Newsletter #3: 100 Days of Harvest

Hello Friends!

We hope you and your loved ones had a lovely holiday season and that your new year is off to an incredible start. January was a month that brought several challenges and delays to our resolutions and goals. However, February has this renewed sense of focus and determination. We are back to work and eager to see what 2022 has in store for all of us. That said, I am thrilled to deliver this first harvest update of the year for 2022!

In mid-January, we received some beautiful pictures from our grower Jimmy Hoyes in Las Sabanas. It is delightful to get a glimpse into harvest as we are just beyond the 100-day mark since it began. They haven't tasted much yet. But we are told that the Typica feels very special this year.

Extra care is being taken this year with the Natural Prep. It has to do with our earlier than usual harvest. The Natural is grown up in the mountain. At this time of year, the morning can still be quite misty and damp before drying out towards the middle of the day. Drying the cherries in that environment would cause them to go rancid. Because Natural is dried with the fruit on, they require time in dry air and warm sun until they reach raisin condition. To ensure proper drying, bags of fresh-picked Natural are taken down the mountain to a Beneficio. Here the environment is much drier. Cherries spend about three days under the sun here.

Afterwards, they are taken back up to Las Sabanas to finish drying for 22-25 days. With all that said, this is an example of an unexpected consequence due to our shifting climate. Whether they affect our grower's processes and if those factors create extra expenses are things we are watching closely.

There is still much to be done, but to contrast how things have been feeling here in Ontario, it is a breath of fresh air to see things going smoothly 5000km away in our beautiful Nicaragua.

From now until harvest, we are working on publishing content and sharing knowledge surrounding the theme of sustainability and exploring the environmental impact of coffee across every step of the supply chain. We hope to do our part in contributing to overall awareness and learning as we slowly move beyond the immediate threat of Covid-19 and look to the future of sustainable practice in the specialty coffee industry.

Until next time,

Happy brewing, roasting, cupping.

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