Nicaragua Jinotega

Jinotega is not a niche microregion tucked inside a bigger story: Nicaragua’s 2011 agricultural census counted 35 percent of the country’s coffee plantations there, more than any other department, ahead of Matagalpa’s 28 percent and Las Segovias’ 24 percent, according to USDA’s Coffee Annual report on Nicaragua. Most bags simply labeled “Nicaraguan” are drawing heavily on this one department, and that flattens a real difference: Jinotega’s farms commonly run 1,000 to 1,700 meters, reaching higher than the 1,100 to 1,350 meter band of a currently listed Matagalpa lot, and that extra elevation is part of why the two departments cup differently even though they sit close together in Nicaragua’s northern highlands.

Washed processing is the specialty benchmark here: cherries are pulped, fermented, and rinsed on the farm before drying, the clean-cup convention used across most of Nicaragua’s north. Picking runs November through March, with lower farms harvested first and the highest Jinotega lots, which ripen more slowly, coming off the tree last in the season.

Two independently published, dated Coffee Review lots average out to a balanced, chocolate-and-fruit cup: banana and cedar-toned chocolate in an organic lot from California Coffee Roasters, and ripe tomato, Meyer lemon zest, caramel, and baking chocolate in a Red Pacamara lot from the Mierisch family’s La Escondida farm, reviewed under the Sucre Beans label. A more recent lot, a 93-point natural-processed microlot from Rusty Dog Coffee, shows what Jinotega can do outside the washed default: pomegranate and goji-berry brightness from letting the cherry ferment whole before drying.