How do Nicaraguans prepare coffee? Where to get green beans?
Submitted by oncidiumfan on Fri, 2013/02/08 - 17:10.
I've found that I can drink arabica coffee and have a hot air popcorn popper for roasting it, and ordered an Aeropress and screen mesh filter and a small hand grinder. I'm going to see if I can get local growers to sell me either parchment or cleaned green beans but so far have been playing with the better grade of local market beans (29 to 30 Cordobas a pound, last year's crop). Roasting to something between City Roast and City Roast Plus.
Costa Ricans traditionally used a chorreador (http://www.chorreador.com/use-care.html for details) and one of my friends uses that. I think I've seen cloth filters somewhere, but they're not currently in either of my usual supermarkets in Jinotega. I can always head to Matagalpa and see if they're there.
I have a Mr. Coffee but would like to try some other ways of preparing coffee, including what might be traditional here (other than percolators).
Also, has anyone had any luck with buying and roasting green beans from other sources or in other markets?
I've found that the local market beans generally peak about three days after roasting and that the supermarket shelf whole roasted beans are not really that interesting. We do have some roasters in Jinotega, but I haven't tried any other than Soprexxa yet.
Green Beans?
Where are you purchasing your unroasted beans? I'd like to try it since I've been unimpressed with all roasted coffee I've tried in Nicaragua. Where have you gotten yours?
I'm getting them in the Jinotega Mercado (big public market)
I walk around looking at beans until I find some that have been fairly well sorted (no black beans, fairly uniform, grayish green) and buy those (the others tend to be about five to ten cordobas a pound cheaper). I've also gotten parchmento beans from a friend's brother's finca and processed those in a blender to get off the shells (blend very slow speed and in short bursts, better to use a food processor with a plastic dough blade, apparently, but I didn't have that). Bit of work, but not impossible work with the blender (shelling by hand was too too tedious). Green unroasted beans can be stored (dry, airy conditions, in the dark, burlap bags) for at least a year). My guess is what I'm getting at the market are beans that were smaller and less dense than typical export grade beans. I'm seeing some that I cull and there have been a few peaberries in what I buy (with hot air roasting, the peaberries seem to be even with the other beans). I would like to get export grade beans directly from a farm -- and have been asking my next door neighbor and some other people about that.
The beans in the market now are likely to be last year's beans -- the woman I bought from last week said the new beans would be coming to the market in March.
Walk around one of the high country markets and look at all the available beans to find the best cleaned ones. I've paid from 28 to 30 cordobas a pound for them (bought three pounds last Saturday). If you know someone who grows and processes beans through to parchment, talk to them about buying a largish quantity after doing a small sample roast and taste test.
My US coffee friends are in shock over the prices I'm paying for arabica high grown green beans -- but I explain that the best of the crop goes to Japan and Europe. My guess is that finding a local farmer and offering 30 cordobas a pound for his best beans and buying a hundred pounds would work nicely for the both of you.
I'll post what my roasted beans look like.
Rebecca Brown
Do you have a wok? I've
Do you have a wok? I've found wok roasting 1lb batches to be pretty simple, but never have been able to figure out how to roast more than a pound at a time in a wok without burning it. Since I go through several pounds of coffee a week that doesn't work for me. I used to roast beans in a whirley pop hand crank popcorn maker until the screen melted on the lid and I haven't been motivated enough to fix it. Have you looked at the sweet maria's website? Lots of information there on home roasting, or maybe just ask your neighbors. Good luck!
Sweet Maria's won't ship to Nicaragua
And they don't ship electronic goods internationally. Eventually, I want to get Orphan Expresso's Lido hand grinder, but they haven't made a new batch of those.
The air popper works fine so far, though I understand that the life span of these when used for roasting coffee isn't that great. My neighbor has his coffee commercially roasted and milled -- doesn't even have a whirley blade coffee grinder. I think it would be better in the whole bean form and would be fun to try roasting (his finca is at a higher elevation than Jinotega). I've had some decent skillet roasts and one really great skillet roast (third day after roasting).
I suspect that most of the market beans are going to people who skillet roast them, but I haven't seen how they handle grinding and brewing other than the one person who has the Costa Rican drip through a cotton flannel filter system.
Since it's just me and occasional guests, small batch roasting is fine. If I see a wok at the local USA used stuff store, I might pick one up.
Rebecca Brown
Mother in law method
We use the mother in law method. That's where you give your mother in law say five pounds of beans and tell her to keep a pound for herself. While popcorn poppers work, just for very small batches. She just uses a huge pot -- the kind you use to cook your big batch of nacatamales. We have a commercial roaster here (same as what a Gato Negro uses -- I thank Rob for showing me what to buy) but have never hooked it up because it doesn't make sense for the volume we consume.
Also have a Bunn grinder which is like what you would find in Safeway 50 years ago. Works great but, as I remember, cost $700.
As for what I call the dirty sock method of making drip coffee, we have one. Great if the electricity goes off but as we generate our own it never goes off. Not sure where Ana bought it but they are easy to find but a supermarket is not the right place to look.
I've been around the market asking about cloth filters...
...but they don't show up or people don't know what I'm looking for. Someone gave me the proper name for the thing here, and someone else said the country people make the filters out of diapers. Cotton flannel seems to be the most common Central American material -- I suspect I could find yardage of that in Matagalpa if not here.
I have seen them somewhere along side paper coffee filters, just not here now (if I did see them here and not in Matagalpa).
Bunns do appear to be out and out commercial grinders. Overkill for one person with occasional guests. I grind before brewing and don't roast more than I can use in three or four days (about a cup of beans roasted in two batches in the air popper).
Rebecca Brown
Maybe the diaper explains
Maybe the diaper explains why I don't particularly like the coffee here! Although, the most expensive coffee is supposedly passed through lemurs? I guess that I'll never be an expert.
Civet cats, not lemurs
I think roasting your own gets you better coffee out of the local beans than you'd get from anything you could buy in a supermarket. The beans my neighbor had were probably robusta (big beans) and lacked the smell I like with the little local beans (and didn't roast well in my hot air popper).
Friends who came to visit liked the robusta better than I did and took it home with them. I'll stick to the arabicas.
My understanding is that bean, roast, grind, and brewing methods all play a part. Trick is to figure out how to get the best out of the local beans. The African arabicas seem to be more highly regarded. Also Nicaragua doesn't grow as high as either Costa Rica or Guatemala (Antigua beans seem to be quite highly regarded by the coffee fanatics).
Local beans should be good for French press, Aeropress and pour over manual drip preparations to get the most out of the beans. I think I'm missing some body and would like to try some other beans from Matagalpa or Nuevo Segovia to see if those would improve on that.
Never drank coffee back in the US, so have no basis for comparison, just trying to get something I like drinking out of the beans I can get. I've got a couple of possible connections for farm gate beans and have friends who'd split a sack with me if we can find the right beans.
Rebecca Brown
Yes, I like the sock too.
Most days though its a regular saucepan (well not so regular, its an Italian Lagostina) I watch the pan and catch it just before the boil (boiling makes it bitter). Turn off the gas, put on the lid and leave for 2 minutes. (the thick bottom of the pan keeps good heat), then I put my stainless steel fine mesh tea strainer over my big coffee mug and pour a good cup off coffee. I don't clean the pan or strainer with dish soap, just water. Paper filters and residues kill the coffee like it would kill a beer.
Just tried this with a stainless lined copper pot
Better body and less acids (this was the roast I turned off for a while at 200 degrees so the beans could equalize in internal temps before roasting further). Used the Mr.Coffee filter basket holder and wire filter over the Mr. Coffee glass carafe instead of a tea strainer. Thanks. I'll try this again.
From everything I've been reading, the best coffee doesn't require really expensive coffee makers. Aeropresses, pour overs, and this (more or less a French press w/o the French press) do justice to the beans. Few automatic machines do much for the coffee.
The women in the mercado today were telling me to just use a plastic strainer. I suspect I'd use my tea strainer or the metal coffee filters before those.
Rebecca Brown