Organic Coffee Plantation at Mombacho-Las Flores

I went to a café in Managua, named Las Flores, and it had the best tasting coffe in the world. (Sorry Starbuck and Dunkin' Donuts) I saw on the Las Flores web page, which I will include at the end, an option for coffee vendors. Hmm...I might need to talk with Ed Ruiz, the owner of Trent River Coffee Company in New Bern! The taste is smooth and rich, but not too strong. I was able to purchase my ticket to visit the organic coffee plantation at this coffee shop, for a very good price of $15, which included the transportation, a detailed guide of the plantation, and a tour of Mombacho. Tourists in Granada are paying $13, but this doesn't include the coffee plantation tour; and this was a highlight of the trip, if you are interested in plants, pesticide-free farming, and the process of making coffee. A little tip, though. If you plan to do the full tour, don't have another event on the calendar for that day. When you are ontop of Mombacho, the buses (kind of a military type truck) only return at certain times. So, if you are done, you may have a 2 hr. wait, and trust me, the descent is very steep! My legs were sore for four days! (and I thought I was in pretty decent shape-lol) I have to admit though, I wasn't planning on hiking (I wore flip-flops) because the locals refer to this as the "little" volcano, so I was saving my hiking shoes for Ometepe; which by the way, just ended up being a tropical resting spot because I was so sore Case in point, don't listen to the locals-it's all perspective-all volcanoes are big to me, as we don't have any in NC! I'm such a "flat-lander" as the Vermonters say. Although I think even a true Vermonter may have a hard time with some of these "little" volcanoes. (Right, Buzz?). Back to the coffee tour: Ok, so the top picture is the lovely organic compost. Unless you have seen the results of pesticides on the neurological system and overall health of farmworkers, I guess you really couldn't refer to compost as lovely. Having worked with farmworkers through the NC Farmworker Health Program (NCFHP), and having seen the pesticide exposures and consequences, I found this organic process thrilling. They use ethanol spray on the compost and have bottles that look like beetle traps, with ethanol inside, to attract the bugs. The plantation has sixteen full time workers, one of which was our tour guide. He is standing next to a Costa Rican coffee plant that is similar in taste to the Arabica coffee plants that they grow, but it is a hardier plant. One plant that is well taken care of lasts 40-50 years! The 2 main problems are "brocas", an insect smaller than a termite, that can dry out the plant, and "rolla", a yellow dust that can be carried from the workers hands and infect other plants. Interestingly, when it rains too much (which hardly ever happens in Nicaragua), that also drys the plant out-it actually looks burned! The group of small plants pictured have been infected with brocas so they will go through and hand pick the infected leaves, and new shoots will grow so that the plant can be productive again. Each plant can produce 3,000-5,000 grains of coffee if well-tended. On the last picture you can see part of the water resevoir, which can hold 1,800 gallons of water-it is now half-full. During the harvest 40 more temporary workers are employed. I am so happy to know that there aren't pesticides floating down the volcano to the inhabitants of Masaya and Granada! The site for Las Flores:
http://cafelasflores.com/ Site for the NCFHP: http://www.ncfhp.org/about.asp