The story behind La Virgen Estate Claudia Rivera SHG

In 2012, Claudia Vanessa Rivera founded La Virgen with her husband with a vision of bettering the environment and local community. They produce high-quality coffee with responsible practices on their 40-hectare farm and generate wealth not only for their own plantation but for the workers and the surrounding community.

The farm is in Las Nubes community of Jinotega in Northern Nicaragua at an altitude of 1,270 meters. In addition to Caturra and Catuai, they have small experimental micro-lots planted with java, pacamara, maracaturra, maragogipe, and gesha varieties. They manage every aspect of production with their own wet and dry mill for micro-lots and have extremely exacting standards for quality, inspecting, and performing quality control at every point. This has helped them grow from producing only 53 bags their first year to now producing 575 bags per year.

We collaborated with Claudia Rivera to create the classic Nicaraguan flavor profile of bright acidity, clean, sweet coffee, with the exceptional quality we expect from a producer like La Virgen.

Notes From the Roasting Team: This Nicaragua is very reminiscent of our Kenya Rungeto; it’s got awesome juicy acidity; it’s a very sweet cup but it carries weight with the body. We get both tea notes and coffee notes in this tasting and it’s quite the star. Starting juicy and tea-like, it falls into substantial coffee with medium body and clears with a wonderful mouthwatering sweet finish.