This is In My Mug coffee number 927, roasted and posted to subscribers on Friday 14th August, 2026.
A delicate yellow plum acidity keeps this super fudgy coffee lively and unctuous, with a handful of creamy pecans on the finish.
Nineteen years is a long time to buy anything from anyone. We've been buying coffee from the Mierisch family since 2007, and Finca Limoncillo has been there for almost all of it. It's a fixture in our green book, a farm we've watched change, and a relationship that's outlasted most things at Ozone. This washed Ethiosar is the first single origin we're releasing from this year's Nicaraguan harvest, and it feels like the right way to open the season.
Nineteen harvests, and counting
Our relationship with Limoncillo started in 2007, and it began the way a lot of relationships did back then: as part of a buying group, sharing a container with other roasters. It didn't stay that way for long. From the very first cupping, we knew this was a coffee we wanted on our own terms.
The turning point came a few years in. We'd been relying on Nicaraguan importers to bring Limoncillo coffee into the UK, and then they stopped, for reasons that had nothing to do with quality. Rather than lose the coffee, we funded a full twelve months' supply ourselves. At the time it was a leap of faith. Nearly two decades on, it looks like one of the better calls we've made.
The family repaid it in kind. The Mierisches were instrumental in helping us import our very first full container of coffee into the UK, a piece of logistical hand-holding that shaped how we've sourced ever since. Since 2007 we've bought from nine different Mierisch farms, with four forming the backbone of the relationship. Limoncillo is the one we always come back to.
On the farm
All of the Mierisch farms in Nicaragua are scattered across the Jinotega and Matagalpa regions in the north west of the country, dotted up either side of the mountain range that marks the border between the two departments. When our Green Buyer Roland visits, he'll usually take Limoncillo on the same day as La Huella and Mama Mina, since they sit close enough together to string into one trip. You start small at Mama Mina, work through La Huella, and finish at Limoncillo, the biggest of the three.
And it is big. Finca Limoncillo spans 171 hectares, 109 of them planted with coffee, climbing to around 1,200 metres above sea level in the mountains of Matagalpa. A further 54 hectares are protected rainforest, and the rest supports cattle and horses. Nine separate waterfalls cross the farm's terrain. It's a beautiful place, and a benchmark for what Nicaraguan specialty coffee can be.
The name comes from the small lemon trees growing on the land when the family acquired it. Alongside the Ethiosar you'll find Caturra, Red Bourbon, Pacamara and Java growing here: the range is part of the point. This is a family known for varietal work, and Limoncillo is where a lot of it happens.
Five generations of Mierisch
The first Mierisch farm was founded in 1895 by German émigré Ernst Bruno Mierisch Boettiger, who was compensated by the Nicaraguan government for his engineering work on the Pacific railroad between Masaya and Diriamba with a parcel of land: a goldmine, and a farm he named “Sajonia,” the Spanish spelling of his home region back in Germany, Saxony. In 1908 he planted his first coffee tree.
Rather than heading back to Germany, Bruno stayed. Today Fincas Mierisch run nine coffee farms in Nicaragua and three in Honduras, and the business is in the hands of his grandson Dr. Erwin Mierisch Buitrago (third generation) and great-great-grandson Erwin “Wingo” Mierisch Jackman (fifth).
Wingo has been involved since 2017, with a hand in everything from post-harvest processing to roasting, cupping and green sales. His interest in innovation and research has led him to head up the development of new post-harvest methods at the mill, and to tighten QC lab protocols for quality and consistency. With his input, the team at Don Esteban have invested heavily in processing experimentation, which is a large part of why this family's name carries the weight it does.
Erick Lopez is Head Agronomist across the Mierisch farms. He started at entry level twenty-two years ago, working in the fields. The family spotted his talent and commitment, promoted him, and financed his further education so he could keep moving up. He now oversees most of the practical day-to-day running of the farms. He's typical of the Fincas Mierisch team: full of people who've been there for years, and that accumulated expertise is exactly what makes the quality possible.
Much of the family's reputation for meticulous, experimental processing is owed to Eleane Mierisch, who spent years overseeing that side of the business and became one of Nicaragua's most respected figures in the field. Her precision and curiosity shaped how the family approach every lot, and that legacy is still very much present at Don Esteban today. Eleane passed away in 2023, but her influence on how this family works, and on this coffee by extension, hasn't gone anywhere.
Good people grow good coffee
The family employ over 3,000 staff during harvest, and more than 60 families live at Limoncillo full-time. They're seriously loved by the people who work for them, more so than at any other farm we buy from. There's real warmth and respect running in both directions.
Because the Mierisches are our friends, we get to drill down into the detail of what that actually means: wages 30% above the local minimum, free housing, electricity and running water, meals cooked daily by on-site kitchen staff, free daycare and healthcare, and on-site schools where teachers are paid twice the city wage. Those teachers also pass on skills like pottery and weaving, so people can diversify beyond coffee.
It keeps proving the same thing to us: good people grow good coffee.
Farming with a light touch
Across this much land, sustainability has to be deliberate. Chemical use is kept minimal, and the farm manages its environmental impact through careful land management.
In 2024 the farm completed a 15 kW hydroelectric plant, supplying renewable energy to both the farm's operations and the sixty families living on site. Large swathes of preserved forest maintain the biodiversity the farm is known for, and the coffee sits alongside cattle, horses and woodland rather than replacing them.
Don Esteban
The Don Esteban mill sits on Finca Limoncillo itself and acts as the central processing hub for all the family's Matagalpa farms. Named in honour of the family patriarch, it's built for precision and flexibility, so the team can adapt their approach to suit each varietal and each individual lot.
Cherries are hand-picked and then de-pulped using eco-pulpers, which cut water use dramatically while giving the team fine control over how much mucilage stays on the bean, crucial when you're chasing a specific outcome. For this washed lot, the coffee ferments in tiled tanks before being thoroughly washed and dried slowly on covered African-style raised beds. It's a clean, patient process, and it's what gives this coffee its clarity.
Ethiosar: a varietal born from a problem
Here's the part we like best.
Ethiosar exists because something was going wrong. The family's cousin Ricardo farms at around 800 metres, noticeably lower than Limoncillo, and his plants were struggling. Yields were dropping and disease pressure was climbing, driven by a combination of shifting climate, heavier rainfall, and the inherent difficulty of growing specialty coffee at lower elevations in Nicaragua.
But one experimental plant in his rows was doing the opposite. It was thriving: fruiting heavily, shrugging off disease, and looking entirely unbothered by conditions that were flattening everything around it. That plant became Ethiosar, though plenty of people still call it Ricardo, after the man who spotted it.
What's in it is a considered piece of plant breeding, not a shortcut:
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Sudan Rume: a rare wild arabica first found on the Boma Plateau in the 1940s, and one of the most genetically pure forms of Coffea arabica in existence. It's a genetic ancestor of SL-28, the celebrated Kenyan varietal, and it's prized worldwide as a flavour donor for its floral, fruity, deeply sweet complexity.
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Sarchimor: a hybrid of Villa Sarchi (a compact dwarf mutation of Bourbon from Costa Rica) and the Timor Hybrid, bred specifically for productivity and a natural resistance to coffee leaf rust.
- The offspring of those two was then crossed back with Villa Sarchi, adding sweetness, cup clarity and a compact plant structure while holding onto the disease resistance.
The result sits at a crossroads: African heirloom complexity, Bourbon-lineage sweetness, and real resilience.
On the farm, the case is compelling. Ethiosar yields up to 40% more than Caturra, one of the most widely planted varietals in Latin America, from fewer plants per hectare, which means lower input costs, less pruning and less fertiliser. And its natural rust resistance reduces the need for chemical treatment at a time when leaf rust has devastated crops across Central America. A varietal that holds its own without constant intervention isn't just convenient; it's a meaningful step towards more resilient coffee farming.
Ethiosar: a hybrid built for the future →
The proof
If all that sounds like a farmer's argument rather than a drinker's one, 2021 settled it.
That year the Mierisch family revived their own Los Favoritos Private Collection Auction, run in partnership with the Alliance for Coffee Excellence: fifteen winning coffees across six farms and five processes, eleven of them scoring 88 points or above. Eleane Mierisch, by then General Manager and a Cup of Excellence Head Judge, helped run it, calling Ethiosar's inclusion a first for any auction of that kind. Top of the pile, and the only coffee in the entire field to break 90, was an Ethiosar at 90.30 points. It came from one of the family's lower-altitude farms.
It's still a rare variety to see in circuits like that, a strong result for a plant that started life as a workaround.
In the cup
Ethiosar's profile reflects its heritage: the Sudan Rume parentage brings complexity, the Villa Sarchi influence brings refined sweetness and a clean, rounded body. Washed processing sharpens all of it into something crisp and well-defined.
Fudge is the first thing you'll notice: thick, sweet and properly unctuous, the sort of body that coats the whole cup. A delicate yellow plum acidity cuts through and keeps it lively rather than heavy, and creamy pecan rounds everything off on the finish. It's rich, not sleepy, and it takes milk beautifully if that's your thing.
Meet the Mierisch family →
What is coffee processing? →
Traceability
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Country: Nicaragua
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Region: Matagalpa
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Municipality: Yasica Norte
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Farm: Limoncillo
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Producers: The Mierisch family
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Farm size: 171 hectares
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Coffee growing area: 109 hectares
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Protected rainforest: 54 hectares
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Varietal: Ethiosar
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Process: Washed
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Elevation: 1,200 masl
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Harvest months: October–February
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Diurnal temp. cycle: Avg high 25°C, low 17°C
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Awards: Cup of Excellence 2008 (2nd place)
Cupping scores
Cupping notes: fudge, pecan, yellow plum.
- Clean Cup: 6/8
- Sweetness: 6.5/8
- Acidity: 6.5/8
- Mouthfeel: 6.5/8
- Flavour: 6/8
- Aftertaste: 6/8
- Balance: 6/8
- Overall: 6.5/8
- Correction: +36
- Total: 86/100
If you'd like to find out more about how we score coffees, have a read of our guide to what coffee cupping scores actually mean. And if you fancy trying it yourself, we've got a guide to coffee cupping too.
Roasting information
Medium dark: keep it nice and steady through first crack and into the gap with a good pace, dropping it just before second.
