Silvia María Ibarra Almendarez

Silvia María Ibarra is a young lawyer from Ocotal, the capital of Nueva Segoriva, one of the provinces of Nicaragua. She has been married for almost 6 years and with her smile she captivated Mario, her husband.

Both of them make a solid marriage and even though they are young they have demonstrated the maturity that is needed to scale very high in this competitive business of coffee. They have been nominated twice in the contest “the cup of excellence”.

“It has been an effort of many years” confesses Silvia. “Although I am the owner, my husband has been a key person to win this award… he encouraged me to bring a sample of my coffee and to be fair, he is in charge of the operational part of the business. He stays in the farm, hires the pickers and guarantees the logistic” adds Silvia smiling.

When we go deeply into the sacrifices and risks of this business, the young coffee producer confirms: “to obtain this level of quality, we have gone through almost everything… we faced a sad situation last April when my husband was kidnapped…he was briging the coffee to the city when a group of armed men threaten him, gagged him and took him to an unknown place. To free him we had to pay an amount of money that almost brought us to bankruptcy” she cries.

Both, Silvia and her husband see with pleasure the fruit of their job: The excellent score that their coffee obtained regarding flavor. They are thinking to expand. In order to do this, they search for better offers in the international market.

Their enthusiasm due to their “specialty coffee” is contagious. They end by saying: “in fact we promote our coffee as a family business. We have a place call “La esquina del café” (the corner of coffee) which is located in downtown Ocotal (near 25 kilometers or 15 miles from “Santa Gema”). “People from Honduras have crossed the borders to buy it” emphasizes Silvia while holding in her arms her 10 months old baby Enmanuel and next to her is also her daughter of 6 years old.