Nicaraguan Selva Negra: 3 Pound Bundle

Description

Selva Negra Estate (La Hammonia) — Matagalpa, Nicaragua

New 2025/26 crop!

Selva Negra Estate—whose coffee farm is known as La Hammonia—is a historic coffee farm and private nature reserve in the mountains of Matagalpa, northern Nicaragua. One of the most sustainable farms in the world. Beyond producing specialty coffee, it includes an ecolodge and an organic farm, with bird friendly practices and Rainforest Alliance certification, making it a flagship destination for sustainable coffee in Central America.

Identity & Origins: Selva Negra’s roots reach back to the late 19th century. The Kühl family and their descendants have preserved the coffee tradition since the late 1800s, revitalizing the estate from 1974 onward and transforming it into a diversified, sustainable project that today unites tourism, conservation, and high-quality coffee.

Terroir: Coffee grows under shade within cloud-forest landscapes at ~1,200–1,300 meters above sea level (≈4,000–4,300 ft). The combination of altitude, volcanic soils, and shade slows cherry maturation, encouraging cups that are sweet, layered, and intense.

Varieties & Processing: The estate cultivates traditional varieties such as Bourbon and Typica, alongside Caturra, Catuaí, and micro-lots of Geisha. Selva Negra is proficient in multiple processing methods—washed, honey, and natural—yielding profiles that range from malty sweetness and cocoa to floral and citrusy nuances in Geisha lots.

Recent lot examples:

• Selva Negra Honey: Sweeter but not fruity, a bit of raised acidity and a little fuller bodied. Great balance of tones. Best light to medium.
• Selva Negra Natural: Sweeter with a bit of fruit on the pallet. Not too ferment, just a hint, slightly raised acidity, body and sweetness due to in-cherry drying. Best light to medium.
• Selva Negra Washed: A classic and clean Nicaragua. Malty, lower acidity, smooth and creamy. Best medium to dark.

Sustainability & Community: Selva Negra is a reference point for environmental practices: organic production, habitat conservation for birds, and responsible water and waste management (including converting by-products into compost), reinforcing a model that benefits both the local community and the surrounding ecosystem.

Nicaraguan SHG RFA Selva Negra – Geisha Washed Processed

Tasting Notes: A very tasty cup but not super closely link to a top end Geisha, not a bad thing but just so you know what to expect. A blind tasting of this cup reminds me more of a Costa Rican profile than a traditional Nicaraguan or Ethiopian like Geisha coffee as the naming might suggest.

This cup is sweet, medium to low acidity with a chocolaty and floral cup profile. Best served in the medium to dark roast ballpark. The chocolatiness can come off a bit malty the darker you roast, more like Selva’s other beans at the fuller roasts but the cup definitely separates itself with the more floral attributes and sweeter edge. A great cup to drink all day long. Light roasts right at first crack can be a little grassy but doesn’t take much development past that to present a very tasty cup.

Roasting Notes: Easy to roast, great prep on the beans and roasts pretty even. We would shoot for a medium roast at first and go lighter or darker to your preference. Medium to low chaff. Setup helps smooth out the cup especially if shooting for a pretty light roast. Medium to dark roasts were great even 12 hours after roasting.

Nicaraguan SHG RFA Selva Negra Parainema – Washed Processed

Tasting Notes: A very clean and sweet cup of coffee. Medium to full bodied with just a little hint of acidity. Lighter roasts produce a pretty delicate cup with a hint more floral aspect than darker roasts with pretty soft hints of a chocolate/caramel undertone fading into some herbal spice. Medium roasts were a cup everyone would love with smooth chocolaty tones, a hint of malt in the aftertaste, on the sweeter side. Darker roasts produce a very cool sweet malty and smokey type cup  much more full-bodied with a bit more strength to it. Really dark gets a bit edgy.

Roasting Notes: A good clean cup at almost any roast point but lighter roasts will show much different character than medium and dark. Lighter the cup shows some acidity along with herbal and spice notes. A medium roast brings forth smooth chocolaty tones and well developed sweetness, pretty low acidity.  We liked it best just before 2nd crack kept it nice and smooth but built up decent body and the nice smokey malty tone.

Nicaraguan Selva Negra – San Felipe Mirador Caturra – Washed Processed

Tasting Notes: A very clean and fresh batch from Selva Negra. A little citric & floral acidity upfront, balanced with nice complex nutty & malty undertones. Light roasts are going to be a little front loaded with the brighter characteristics, a higher rated cup meaning one will notice some decent crisp acidity at the light-medium roasts. Will give great depth of flavor but may be a little sharp for some. Our favorite roast and a great everyday drinker was in the medium roast ballpark, builds more of a smooth and creamy cup with a sweet edge, reducing that perceived acidity to just a pinch. Turns much stronger, a robust cup most would say, into the darker roasts but shined nicely; fuller bodied with strong malty and smoky tones, still a sweeter edge to it which darker roast fans will love.

Roasting Notes: A little more challenging to roast but luckily tastes pretty good no matter where you roast it to. Error lighter than darker when playing around. Although this cup tastes like a nice Ethiopian natural, it will roast much more two toned. When shooting for a nice light roast, judge it by the lighter shades of beans, make sure they get through first crack then cool it out. A speckled roast is normal, you will see 2-3 shades of beans when done roasting, this coffee is produced to give those results.