Four generations of our family have grown coffee in the mountains of northern Nicaragua since the 1930s. In 1991, that work took root as two farms: Finca Las Hortensias and Finca Bethania, sitting between 1,200 and 1,500 meters in the Dipilto and Macuelizo mountains, some of the highest coffee-growing elevations in the country, right on the border with Honduras.

My mom and aunts, Ana and Martha, manage these farms the same way our family always has, every decision on varietal, processing, and harvest timing made by family, not a broker. Coffee is picked by hand each December through March, processed at Finca Bethania's own wet mill, and dried at our family's mill in Mozonte.