Back to Nicaragua 2025: Justin & Shannon's Trip to Origin

Lead Roaster Shannon Savage and I (Justin) just returned from five days in Nicaragua, where we visited all of our direct relationship producers. Because of our recent focus on deepening relationships in Honduras and Costa Rica, my last visit to Nicaragua was in 2022. It felt like too long to all of us! 

Teaming up with us on this trip was our dear friend Jeff Brooks who owns Giv Coffee in Canton, CT. You might say we are like sister companies. Jeff’s wife Emily was my wife’s college roommate, and they were with us on a mission trip to the orphanage in Nicaragua that we were sponsoring back in 2011. It was on that trip that we first visited Finca Un Regalo de Dios of Luis Alberto Balladarez as well as his dry mill Beneficio Las Segovias. For the four of us, it was a trip that changed the trajectory of our lives.

Back then, both of our businesses looked more like hobbies. We roasted on one pound roasters and purchased tiny quantities of coffee on websites aimed at home roasters. We dreamed of someday being able to form friendships with coffee producers and buy large quantities of coffees that would produce sustained economic impact. On that trip, the seeds of a future we could only dream of were planted.

This year’s trip started with a meal with the Balladarez family. During that meal we met the newest member of the family—lovely little one-year-old Ariana, daughter of Luis Gadiel Jr. and his wife Ashley. Passing little Ariana around the table in the midst of sharing stories was the highlight of the meal. One particularly funny moment was when Luis Alberto turned to Shannon and said with a large smile, “So, no more low scores this year, Mr. 78!” Shannon immediately blushed because he knew exactly what Luis was referring to.

Back in 2016, Shannon made his first trip to Nicaragua with me. On that trip he was handed a coffee scoring sheet he had never used before. As is customary, after we cupped through the first ten coffees on offer (industry jargon for “we tasted the coffees that were available for us to purchase”), we then sat down to share our notes and scores. There were 8-10 roasters present. For each coffee the scores would come in: 84.5, 85, 86, 85, etc. until we got to Shannon and he would say, “78” or something in the mid 70s. Specialty coffees score 80 points and above, so Shannon's low scores implied he did not believe they passed that bar). It did not take long before we all realized Shannon’s scores were always about 7 points lower than everyone else’s because he had neglected to fill in one section of the form. We all got a good laugh out of that and it clearly stuck with Luis, which he gladly reminded Shannon of! Such is the warm banter that has grown up among us as friends and I cherish it. His scores were a lot higher this year!

Besides tasting some really lovely coffees from the first part of this year’s harvest, the highlight of Day 2 was enjoying a barbecue with all the workers at Luis’s Beneficio Las Segovias mill. A few years ago Jeff and I funded a big cookout for all the workers as a demonstration of our gratitude for their hard work and we wanted to do the same again this year. It was lovely sitting down with all 80 workers and breaking bread together. There was grilled beef ribs, chorizo, chicken, pork, and then the best gallo pinto I’ve had in a long time. I went around and shook hands with everyone, doing my best to learn their names and thank them for all their hard work. These people are so important to what we do.

The barbecue came in way under what we budgeted for, so we had $800 leftover. Luis came up with the idea to do a raffle and give 8 people a chance to win a $100 bill. I thought it was a great idea so we did it. Let’s just say there were some BIG smiles on the winners’ faces when I handed them that money!

Day 3 was spent entirely with Joaquin and Marielo Lovo and their family. They are some of the sweetest and most generous people I’ve met in my coffee travels. We have been working with them since 2015. They own three farms that were started by Joaquin’s grandfather and coffee from their Finca Bella Aurora is the base of our Tandem Espresso. We started the day cupping through three different lots of coffee that we could choose from for the Tandem component and settled on one that we believed was the best. We actually scored it at 86 points, which is crazy considering it is going into a blend. From there we headed up to visit the farms, which neither Shannon nor Jeff had ever been to. Being up in those mountains is so peaceful and beautiful. There is a calm that is hard to find here in the States without venturing pretty far from civilization.

What keeps coming up over and over is the shortage of labor all of the Central American nations are experiencing in the mountains. Many young people are leaving to either move to the cities or to illegally enter the US. There is now a growing welfare state in these countries because people coming here are sending money back home, which is leading to people leaving the work force and living off the money they are receiving. The money helps stimulate their economies so the governments are not doing anything to stop its inflow. This is genuinely impacting the production of coffee, which is incredibly labor intensive. Without workers the harvest cannot be brought in. There is very little mechanization that can be used in these steep mountains. Challenges like this perplex me because they are so complicated and difficult to overcome.

On Day 4, we concluded our visit with a special time of sharing and praying together in Luis Alberto’s office—the room where the trajectory of my life changed back in 2011. There was laughter, tears, big hugs, and a deep sense of joy and gratitude in all of our hearts as we left. God has done something special between us, and it is what makes everything we’re doing worth it. Coffee has always been about the people for me, and I will do everything in my power to keep it that way.  It is the human connection and the impact that happens across the globe when people come together with love and a unified purpose that keeps me pressing on.