Toston

I’m the second generation of coffee farmer, I was born and raised in a coffee producing family. Today I am continuing what my father inherited from us. Due to financial problems in 2002, I had to make my own decision to stay with the family and face the current situation at that time. I had to do various businesses parallel to coffee to be able to heal the blow we had.

Our coffee at that time had quality problems and that is when I started to get advice to improve. That's when I got the idea that coffee has greater potential and in 2005 I discovered the different attributes that coffee can offer. In 2006 was my first participation in the Cup of Excellence contest and having obtained good results, I made more efforts to enter the specialty coffee segment.

In 2008 I integrated the so-called coffee processes into our project and in 2015 I began to experiment with various types of fermentation. A year later, in collaboration with a chemical engineer, I delved into this procedure, thus achieving greater precision in the qualities and processes of our products.

To date, I've participated in the Cup of Excellence competition more than 40 times and have won first place five times. In Nicaragua, we promote an event called The Best of Maragos, a competition where only varieties like Maragogype, Maracaturra, and Pacamara can compete, where I have also won first place. My first time winning first place in the Cup of Excellence competition was in 2005, and my last time consistently winning first place was in 2024. And there are many more to come. - Olman Valladarez

We've been working with Olman Valladarez for 10 years now. As a producer, his job is "to develop an eco-friendly business model, to reduce the use of chemical inputs but also to improve the forest and water around us". While he is proud to have taken over the family business and turned it into a benchmark for specialty coffee, he is now keen to have a positive impact on biodiversity.