We're pleased to present a delightful new coffee from Don Sabino and his wife, Maria Jesus. Sabino and Maria Jesus have five children named Edis, Sabino Vladimir, Kenia, Belccis, and Cristian. They have abundant raised beds for both drying coffee and selecting out imperfections.
Sabino and his wife Maria Jesus live in a small village of farmers who produce both coffee and vegetables at the highest altitudes of Jinotega. When you visit their farm you may still see Sabino using two oxen to pull a cart or to plow a field before planting.
Gold Mountain Coffee Growers worked with Sabino’s father, Don Jose, before he passed away, and Don Sabino hopes to continue his father’s coffee farming legacy. The attention he pays to the many details involved with coffee production bodes well for their ability to consistently produce high-scoring microlots. They aspire to plant more coffee and to implement new and more efficient techniques. They say these improvements will allow them to hire more workers and make renovations on their farm, which has excellent altitude and climatological conditions for coffee production.
Before our roasting machine had even been turned on for the first time back in early 2016, we began developing a relationship with Ben Weiner and Gold Mountain Coffee Growers.
In 2002, Ben was working on his thesis research in Nicaragua, focusing on their coffee driven economy. Ben decided to buy a coffee farm and joined a Fair Trade Co-op (which was partially dysfunctional). Not long thereafter, nearby farmers were coming to him expressing that they couldn’t support their families. They began asking Ben to help farmers connect directly with roasting companies; and, that is exactly what Ben has done through Gold Mountain Coffee Growers -- more and more as time goes by.
Gold Mountain Coffee Growers is a social enterprise that, in addition to its own farm (Finca Idealista), works directly with coffee producers in Nicaragua, including Sabino and Maria Jesus, to connect them with roasters abroad. Gold Mountain is on the ground, all the time, teaming up with producers willing to take the steps necessary to produce high-cupping specialty coffee. They literally stand on every partner farm during picking to ensure ripeness with tools and support. Gold Mountain also carries out sustainable development projects in communities, such as free computing classes for girls from coffee communities, medical assistance, micro-credit, running water in schools, and educational supplies.
We sent our Head Roaster, Mike Jarrett, down to spend a few days with Ben and the other producers of the Gold Mountain collective in 2017, and we look forward to having the opportunity to do it again (see our highlights video from that trip below). Seeing the life-changing work being done through the avenue of seriously great coffee with our own eyes reinforced our commitment to working with Ben and the other producers of Gold Mountain whenever we can.
Ben has become a personal friend over the last four years, and seeing what he and the others from Gold Mountain have been able to accomplish through producing high quality specialty coffee continues to be a rewarding experience for us. When you purchase a Gold Mountain coffee like this one from Sabino and Maria, you are supporting hard-working Nicaraguan families who have committed themselves to planting, cultivating, harvesting, and processing the very best of what this region of Nicaragua has to offer.