Although Huila is at the heart of Minga’s sourcing, our experience in Nicaragua played an important role in shaping what Minga would become. Both William and Laura, co-founders of Minga, worked there in the late 2010s. The experience taught us something that has stayed with us: great coffee can be found almost anywhere, including in origins often associated mainly with affordable blends, like Nicaragua. The real challenge is not finding great coffee, but having the local people, knowledge and structure to identify it, preserve its quality and carry it through the supply chain.
Laura experienced this first-hand while working with sisters Martha and Ana Albir, born and raised in Ocotal, Nueva Segovia. They were just starting to export from their newly established mill when Laura joined them, managing quality control and helping build protocols covering everything from drying to export. Together, they worked to develop a system that could consistently deliver high-quality Nicaraguan coffees to the specialty market.
Years have passed since we both left Nicaragua, but the connection with Martha has remained. The sisters have invested greatly in large, covered drying structures, a small dry mill made for microlots, and trained a solid team who we trust can deliver outstanding quality. Today, we are thrilled to be working with Martha and Ana again and to represent their coffees on the European market.
Our Nicaraguan sourcing is intentionally simple: five producers from the Dipilto and Mozonte regions of Nueva Segovia, and an all-women team handling the coffee from production and milling through to distribution in Europe and the UK.
PRODUCERS: five women—each the owner and manager of her own farm—deliver coffee for Minga: Martha Alvir, Ana Alvir, Catherine Herrera, Filomena Gradiz and Martha Sanchez. Some of these coffees are offered as individual microlots (maracaturra, java, catuai), while others have been brought together in a regional blend we call Cumbre.
QUALITY CONTROL AT ORIGIN: Lexanía Marín, Cafetos’ Head of QC, carefully monitors moisture, crafts blends, separates microlots and keeps an eye on physical quality after dry milling. She has been working at Cafetos since Laura left the country in 2018.
MILL & EXPORT: Martha and Ana Albir, co-founders of the mill and exporter Cafetos de Segovia. They are our main point of contact in Nicaragua.
IMPORT & SALES: Laura from Minga.
Located in northern Nicaragua near the Honduran border, Nueva Segovia is known for its rugged terrain and dramatic mountain landscapes, part of the Cordillera Central. With elevations reaching over 1,800 masl, the region enjoys a cooler climate than much of the country. Its combination of high altitude, volcanic soil, and ideal weather conditions make it one of Nicaragua’s top regions for coffee production.
Coffee farming in this region is typically small-scale and family-run. Nueva Segovia accounts for around 10% of Nicaragua’s coffee production—far less than Jinotega (50%) and Matagalpa (30%), where larger estates are more common. But lower volume often translates to greater attention to detail: producers in Nueva Segovia tend to focus on high-quality, microlot-style coffees aimed at the specialty market.
Nueva Segovia consistently stands out in the Cup of Excellence, producing the majority of the competition’s top-ranked coffees year after year. In 2026, producers from the region claimed the top seven places in the Washed category and 17 of the top 20 coffees in the Natural/Honey category.
Last but not least, what we like the most about Nueva Segovia is the small-scale agroforestry farm model. Shade-grown coffee is the norm, often under native trees and with high biodiversity.
