The farm
A mountain at 1,200 meters, with the forest still standing.
Hacienda La Estrella lies fifteen kilometers south of Matagalpa, in the central highlands of Nicaragua. The coffee grows in the shade of native trees, between pastures, a creek and the old house with its mill. This page is a walk through it.
The farm, in six lines.
- Altitude
- 1,200 meters above sea level
- Founded
- 1951, by Ignacio Arauz Cruz and Susana
- Varieties
- Parainema, Araras, Obatá, Costa Rica 95
- Processes
- Washed, natural and honey
- Growing
- Under the shade of native forest
- Region
- Matagalpa, Nicaragua
The shade
The first thing you notice at La Estrella is that you cannot see the coffee from the road. It is under the trees: tall natives with buttressed roots, trunks wrapped in ferns and bromeliads, a canopy that filters the sun into patches.
This is not decoration. Shade slows the ripening of the cherry, which gives it time to build sugar; it protects the soil from the rain and the heat; and it keeps the birds, the insects and the water where they have always been. A shaded farm yields less per tree than one in full sun. The family has always thought the cup was worth it.
The plots
Four varieties grow here today: Parainema, a Honduran variety that resists leaf rust and is the one behind the natural lot that won in 2026; Araras and Obatá, two varieties developed in Brazil; and Costa Rica 95, selected in Costa Rica. Each lot is harvested and processed on its own, so the roasts you see on this site come from different corners of the same mountain.
Between the coffee there are bananas for extra shade and food, pasture for a few horses, and a nursery where the next trees start from seed. Nothing is planted in a hurry: a coffee tree takes three to four years to give its first full harvest.
The harvest and the mill
Harvest comes with the dry season. Pickers go through the same trees several times, taking only the cherries that have turned fully red, because a green cherry in the basket is a sour note in the cup.
At the mill by the house, three processes are used. Washed: the pulp is removed, the beans ferment to loosen the mucilage, are rinsed and then dried; this gives the clean, sweet, chocolate-leaning cup the farm is known for. Honey: the pulp comes off but part of the mucilage stays on the bean while it dries, adding body and sweetness. Natural: the whole cherry is dried slowly in the sun, so the fruit flavors pass into the bean. It is more work and more risk, and it is the process that earned 87.68 points in 2026.
Around the hacienda
The creek, the pastures, the road that climbs to the house and the forest that surrounds all of it.
Come and see it.
The family receives visitors by appointment: a walk through the plots, the mill and a cup of the harvest at the house. Write to us and we will arrange a date.
