Nicaragua Coffee Variety Maracatura: Information & Price Guide - Is Nicaraguan Coffee Delicious?

Professional Coffee Knowledge Exchange & More Coffee Bean Information

For more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat official account: cafe_style)

Nicaragua Coffee Beans - Finca La Picona Maracaturra Experimental Batch

Finca La Picona is located in Dipilto, Nueva Segovia, the northernmost corner of Nicaragua. Covering less than 5 hectares at an altitude of 1600 meters, it borders Honduras—the farm even enjoys a panoramic view across the border. The farm sits inside a natural conservation area and benefits from a unique microclimate. Its owner, Olga Marina Gonzalez Cuadra, lives on the farm with her husband and son; her husband also owns a farm of his own.

Twelve years ago, Ms. Olga purchased Finca La Picona. Besides the 5 hectares planted with coffee, another 5 hectares are kept as natural conservation land where all kinds of flora and fauna thrive. The farm grows a single variety: Maracaturra, which is native to the property. The coffee plots are interspersed with other plants—bananas, citrus, plums, mangoes, and avocados. Maracaturra's yield is not high, but its flavor is exceptional: citrus, yellow fruits, and chocolate notes combine into a cup of remarkable sweetness.

Finca La Picona is a consistent Cup of Excellence performer, placing 4th in 2009, 17th in 2011, 20th in 2012, 16th in 2014, and—remarkably—taking the runner-up spot in 2015! The international judges of the 2015 Cup of Excellence awarded the farm a high score of 89.35. Considering that Nicaragua did not hold the Cup of Excellence in 2013 or 2016, and that since the farm was purchased in 2009 only 2010 failed to produce a winning placement, this record is truly astonishing.

Spain's Right Side Coffee Roastery is collaborating with Finca La Picona for the second year. This year they ran several experimental batches at the farm. After harvesting, the cherries were first floated in the traditional siphon method to skim off floating and damaged beans so quality would not suffer. Then, after pulping, the beans—mucilage fully intact—went into fermentation tanks with controlled temperature and oxygen removal (anaerobic), but for a full 40 hours, far longer than usual. After fermentation, they were moved to another water tank and given just a single rinse, deliberately retaining some mucilage (a semi-washed style), before finally being dried for 20 days on African raised beds.

Nicaragua Coffee Beans' Legendary Variety - Maracaturra

Maracaturra is a hybrid of Caturra and Maragogype. Unsurprisingly, Maracaturra beans are quite large. The trees grow tall with broad leaves, but yields are extremely low—the complete opposite of Caturra.

Caturra is a natural variant of Bourbon, discovered in Brazil in 1937. The plants are short, easy to harvest, and high-yielding, which quickly made it a popular variety across Central and South America. Maragogype, meanwhile, is a variant of Typica discovered in Brazil in 1870 and is now one of the largest Arabica beans of all.

Since Maracaturra descends from Caturra and Maragogype—themselves natural variants of Bourbon and Typica—it carries the genes of both coffee ancestors, producing an endlessly interesting flavor profile!

Nicaragua Finca La Picona Maracaturra Semi-Washed Anaerobic 40h

Country of Origin: Nicaragua
Region: Dipilto, Nueva Segovia
Farm: Finca La Picona
Coffee Growing Area: 5 hectares
Farm Owner: Olga Marina González Cuadra
Altitude: 1600 meters
Variety: Maracaturra
Processing Method: Semi-washed / anaerobic 40h
Award Record: Nicaragua Cup of Excellence (COE) winner in 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2014; runner-up in 2015

Nicaragua Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

The Nicaragua coffee beans - Finca Majagual Washed [Maracaturra] roasted by FrontStreet Coffee come with solid guarantees in both brand and quality. Better still, they are excellent value: each 227-gram bag costs just 90 yuan. Working on 15 grams of beans per cup, one bag brews 15 cups—only about 6 yuan a cup. Compared with coffee shop prices that often top 100 yuan a cup, it is a genuinely conscientious recommendation.

FrontStreet Coffee: A roastery in Guangzhou with a small shop but a diverse bean list, where you can find both famous and lesser-known beans, along with an online store. https://shop104210103.taobao.com

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation: Medium-Roast Beans for Balanced Sweetness

Maracaturra's citrus-and-chocolate sweetness sits right in the wheelhouse of medium roasting, the roast level that best balances acidity, sweetness, and bitterness. FrontStreet Coffee's Brazil Queen Estate is a fine example: a Yellow Bourbon from the world's largest coffee-producing country, softly sweet and perfumed after a medium roast with creamed peanut, chocolate, toast, and sugarcane notes—equally happy in a pour-over, moka pot, or espresso machine. For something fruitier, the FrontStreet Strawberry Candy blend pairs Costa Rican honey-processed coffee with washed Panamanian Geisha, delivering orange-honey fragrance and rounded sweetness through cold brew, pour-over, or espresso. And for a classic, the medium-roasted Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1 fuses acidity, bitterness, sweetness, and body into chocolate, roasted nut, cream, and caramel flavors that few other coffees can match.