Adix Coffee, Nicaragua

Adix Coffee, Nicaragua

Adix Coffee, Nicaragua

This coffee came to us as a random raw, green coffee sample, accompanied by a rash of emails. In my experience, I prefer to roast and cup coffee before the conversation starts.

One Friday night, I was tasting various coffees that I hadn’t managed to get to during the week, and there it is. A stand-out natural, one that takes me back a long time to compare with. The rest of the UK has probably started its weekend, and there is little time to get this coffee in a container. With a little begging and pleading, we squeeze a pallet in. I am wildly excited.

It turns out that Ixil used to live 15 miles away from the roastery for 5 years, learning English and doing a master’s degree. On Sundays, she would even (practically) drive past my house and the roastery…a truly bizarre circumstance. Yet another coffee producer who has a better education than I, chip, shoulder, off!

By the time this coffee arrives, my bubbly, childlike excitement has waned, as time has not helped this delivery. In a small way, the fact that coffee prices have increased hugely since buying it made it less of a financial loss. The coffee had aged too fast to share.

I am not a quitter! We bought this coffee again, and it was unlike any other coffee in the pre-shipment. I am writing this in the hope that this delivery is very soon, and just like the passion-fruit-juice that I experienced…..The coffee travelled around the world like Phileas Fogg, yet the journey time was about 8 months. The wildness in the coffee has fled, but there is a great, sweet espresso here that will cut through all of the milks and make a great cold brew. In an attempt to claw back some of the cost, but also to show that not everything runs smoothly all of the time, yet we are still selling it! This is not because we need to break even at all times, but if we didn’t tell this story of coffee and the events of harvest and travel, you might expect that the world of coffee is immune to outside forces.

The next chapter of this story is a touch weird. Ixil (bless her!) is in contact quite often. Just checking in on email and WhatsApp. This made me think a little bit. Some of our producers just do what they do, and our purchases could be replaced by anyone anywhere, as everyone’s a roaster these days. The work, purpose and drive of Ixil and Adrian wake me up in the morning. I have rolled the coffee dice for a third year, in the hope that we receive the new crop before Christmas 2026(!).  I am also going to throw something else out there, too. If we can’t do a little something in this area, what is the purpose of consuming a luxury here?

I did a bit of deep thinking today, and how could we not buy coffee from here if it tasted great AND made a difference?

A few borrowed quotes:

“Adix Coffee

Rarely do high-quality coffees “just happen.” Usually, years of hard work at the coffee farm level are required to achieve this score. This is why we invest time in monitoring the process during the months of seed germination as well as the picking, drying, and exporting processes. By the time the coffee is roasted and served, it is excellent. This dynamic taste is the product of our attention to detail throughout the entire process.”

Adix coffee is regenerative. The coffee area used to be carrots! The UK is waking up to this now, in a small way. There is a little article here about how bees can affect a coffee harvest, too.

This is the beginning of a story, in whichever way, the next crop arrives.

This is our first Nicaraguan coffee in several years, and I hope we can make room for it in the long term.