METAPHYSICAL MELADIES, Nicaragua

Suitable for all brewing methods.

Roasters Notes: Orange, Fig, Cherry, Green Tea

Nueva Segovia sits in the far north of Nicaragua, where the land folds up into cool, mist-wrapped mountains along the Honduran border. Dipilto is its coffee heartland, a district of steep granite ridges and pine forest whose thin air and sharp diurnal swings have made it one of Central America's most decorated growing zones. It is high, remote country, and the cherry that comes off these slopes carries the clarity that only altitude and patience can give.

This lot is the work of Mario José Gonzáles, who tends the trees at Finca Los Suyates of El Perote across ground that climbs from 1,300 - 1,550 metres above sea level. His is the meticulous labour of the smallholder, picking selectively at full ripeness and carrying each day's harvest down to the wet mill. The planting is Parainema, a hybrid bred for its resistance to leaf rust and prized in the cup for the weight and structure it holds at height, a variety that rewards the grower willing to work difficult land.

Where this coffee turns from convention is the ferment. Rather than a straight washed process, the cherries are sealed and fermented anaerobically, held without oxygen so the sugars break down slow and deep before the fruit is stripped and the seed washed clean. It is a method that pulls the fruit forward without muddying it, laying an extra layer of ferment complexity over the bright, mineral backbone that Dipilto is known for.