About The Mierisch Family, Their Farm, and Their Coffee
The Mierisch Family
They’ve owned their farms since the early 1900s after their great-grandfather, Bruno Mierisch Boettiger, was awarded the land as payment for his work on the Nicaraguan National Railroad. The German immigrant accepted this as compensation—instead of the cash salary that was originally promised—due to the current coffee boom in Nicaragua. Bruno planted his first coffee tree in 1908, and as they say: the rest is history.
Limoncillo
Fast forward to today: just one of 9 farms owned by The Mierisch Family, Limoncillo is a relatively large farm for the area, and it has a heavy forest that provides lots of dense shade for the coffee plants. The cherries are typically harvested during the fall and winter months (October – January) and drying is usually completed in March for April/May shipments. Finca Limoncillo is UTZ certified (now a part of The Rainforest Alliance Certification) and was awarded 2nd place in the 2008 Cup Of Excellence.
The Caturra Varietal
A subspecies of Arabica originally discovered in Brazil, Caturra is naturally more compact than most Arabica varieties, and its short internodes enable it to produce more fruit which makes for higher volume production in smaller spaces (about 200kg more per hectare). However, with its advantages, it also has a slight disadvantage. Caturra is a mutation of The Bourbon variety and like Bourbon, it’s more at risk for diseases and pests, which makes the task of maintenance much more important and time-consuming.
Even with less resilience, it’s one of the most significant varieties in Central America economically and is oftentimes used as the baseline to test new cultivars’ flavors, quality, and more.
