In the April/May issue of the German trade magazine Crema Benjamin and Philipp were able to give an interview about the coffee maker engagement in Nicaragua.
The title "just do it" is not from us, but the Crema editorial team could not have chosen it better. Finca Santa Rita is a project that constantly presents us with new challenges, but brings us joy anew every day. And when we then drink our own roasted coffee from our own finca, that is simply the best coffee out there.
Why is engagement in Nicaragua challenging?
- the current political instability in the country makes it difficult to plan long-term
- every next step involves risk
- we can only make long-term investments to a limited extent at the moment
- loans that producers in the country have to take out themselves are currently burdened with interest rates higher than 20% – if there is access to credit at all these days
- institutions continue to function, roads are no longer blocked (as in early summer 2018), everything seemingly "works"
- but this should not obscure the fact that there is turmoil beneath the social surface
- we maintain a long-distance relationship with our local partners at Boca de Lobo (Claudia Lovo and Tim Willems), which only works through great trust and active exchange
- having the same vision is crucial
Benjamin recently said that "from a business and sober risk assessment perspective, we should never have done Santa Rita." That's true – we're often asked why we do this?
To understand how coffee production can work. For our personal development. And because we increasingly understand what it means to produce good coffee.
Especially given the absurdly low coffee prices these days, on the one hand we're glad to have completely decoupled Santa Rita from the market and to buy the coffee based on production costs. On the other hand, it makes us reflective that we are still part of a very small minority that thinks this way.
That's exactly why this article in Crema means even more to us – heartfelt thanks to the Crema team for giving us the opportunity to make our philosophy accessible to an interested audience.
