September 2012’s pick

Nicaragua SHG Royal Momotombo

Bright, fruity flavours from extra-large, shade-grown beans – a last taste of summer sun to ease you into Autumn.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a pair of coffees less similar than last month’s Aged Sumatra and this month’s Royal Momotombo. Where one evokes a heady darkness, the other is all light and brightness of flavour; where one is quirky and niche, the other is in every sense a classic cup of coffee.

Nicaraguan coffees are known for a balanced, mild cup: they’re easy-to-love coffees you could drink all day. We think Royal Momotombo delivers on the Nicaraguan coffee promise – and then some.

Our coffee experts’ personal verdicts

Jim, 35 years in the coffee trade
“If last month’s coffee was akin to Port, then this zingy, elegant coffee is a Hawkes Bay Sauvignon Blanc! It’s refreshing and beautifully balanced.”

Geoff, 35 years in the coffee trade
“Nicaraguans love their coffee so much that even their toddlers start drinking diluted coffee as soon as they can walk! In the morning Nicaraguans traditionally drink coffee with hot milk and in the afternoon it’s “cafe cito”, served black with sugar – strong and sweet. I’d probably pair this delicate, zesty coffee with the seafood dishes from the Caribbean coast rather than the chilli hot, corn, beans and meat dishes from the north.”

The Nicaraguan coffee story

Coffee production in Nicaragua began on the plain mesa on the country’s Pacific side. Over time, production moved to the mountainous, lake-splashed north, where the volcanic soil yielded better coffee. Nicaragua is blessed with the land, climate and location to be a coffee super-producer, yet curiously enough, its coffee economy has avoided the nearly global trend towards corporatisation: even today, 95% of Nicaraguan coffee farmers are micro- and small-scale producers.

Nicaragua washed SHG Momotombo is an SHG (Strictly High Grown: altitudes of 1200m or more) shade-grown coffee from the Nueva Segovia district in northern Nicaragua, near the Honduran border. The coffee was named for the local volcano: Momotombo is one of Nicaragua’s most iconic images. The peak’s nearly perfect symmetric shape appears on everything from postage stamps to revolutionary graffiti.

It’s all about the big beans

What makes this coffee royal is the size of the beans. As Momotombo coffees are processed, the biggest beans (referred to as ‘Screen 17 beans’ for the biggest sieve size) are set aside. These beauties are pored over by hand and the most flawless are selected for to be Royal Momotombo beans. No less than 67% of the beans in this bag of coffee are Screen 17 beans.

A coffee that looks as good as it tastes

The way a coffee looks isn’t typically something we comment on at Kopi, but Royal Momotombo is an exception. The result of fussily hand-selecting only the biggest and most beautiful beans is an unusually pretty brew. It sounds silly, but take a moment to observe this coffee in natural light. All of those bold, even beans make for an unusually bright chestnut brown liquor. There aren’t a lot of coffees out there that can be enjoyed with the eyes, so drink this one in.

Tasting notes

Royal Momotombo is an all-purpose coffee that’s as good in a latte as it is filter style. The flavour is rich, with subtle notes of nougat sweetness and apricot. There’s a pronounced acidity and a fruitiness to this coffee that makes it very, very drinkable.

This is a medium-bodied coffee but it doesn’t skimp on flavour. See if you can smell Brazil nut and vanilla in the dry aroma, and then a glorious hit of honeysuckle in the wet aroma. It’s sweet and floral, a perfect summertime scent.