Another exciting year with our partners at Caravela, sharing their profound work at the producer and mill level. This Nicaraguan coffee in particular is no stranger to our annual lineup, La Estrella (translated to 'the star'), is a regional blend of several small and medium-scale producers from the Dipilto and Jalapa areas of Nueva Segovia.

Farms scatter primarily across altitudes from 1200 - 1750 masl, surrounded by steep mountain slopes, white quartz plains, and naturally occurring plateau landscapes. The extraordinary biodiversity and surrounding environments offer breathtaking scenery in the region when driving toward the farms along the banks of the Dipilto river canyon walls, where densely packed pine forests with trees as tall as 30m high obscure the mountains.

The coffees that contribute to this blended lot are primarily washed processed Caturra and Catuai varieties. Same-day harvested cherries are pulped and fermented for 26-32 hours before moving to the La Estrella drying mill. Here, Caravela dries the coffee in a controlled, shaded environment to avoid the sporadic effects of changing ambient temperatures, preserving the quality of the coffee and with slower drying, extending the green coffee's shelf life. After drying, Caravela's internal QC team tastes and puts together the lots that would make up La Estrella, a coffee that shines in reflection of the region, their producers, and how they develop their growing communities.

For the 2021-2022 crop cycle, an especially minimal rejected lots percentage of 1.8% shows remarkable effort from long-standing producer relationships that focus on quality-driven crops. For this latest harvest, Caravela bought 24.09% more coffee direct from their farmers, nearly purchasing their total production, allowing their farmers to earn greater financial incentives for their harvests.