Coffee Sketcher

Finca La Esperanza (Dipilto)

Properties3
descriptionThe Zavala family's original farm in Dipilto, Nueva Segovia — 1,300 m, once ordinary washed Caturra selling at $3.55 a pound in 2006, and the source of the washed Geisha that won the 2025 Nicaragua Cup of Excellence at $66.
tagsfarm, nicaragua, nueva-segovia, dipilto, cup-of-excellence, geisha, caturra
aliasesFinca La Esperanza Dipilto, La Esperanza Dipilto, La Esperanza Zavala, Finca La Esperanza Nueva Segovia

7 min read

Finca La Esperanza (Dipilto)

La Esperanza is a coffee farm in Dipilto, Nueva Segovia, Nicaragua, at about 1,300 metres. It is the Zavala family’s original property — founded by Salatiel de Jesús Zavala Ferrufino and now worked by his son Abner Samuel Zavala — and it holds the family’s biggest result: its washed Geisha took first place among the washed coffees at the 2025 Nicaragua Cup of Excellence, scoring 90.73 and selling at 66.00 a pound.

To verify

This is not the Finca La Esperanza in Mozonte, and it is not Café Granja La Esperanza. “La Esperanza” — “hope” — is one of the most common farm names in Latin America, and at least three different coffee farms carry it. See the name-collision callout below before citing anything about “Finca La Esperanza”. This note is titled with its municipality for exactly that reason.

Story

2006 — an ordinary Nicaraguan farm

The first record of La Esperanza is its entry in the 2006 Nicaragua Cup of Excellence, and it is a useful snapshot of what a good-but-unremarkable Nicaraguan farm looked like before the specialty boom (ACE farm directory — 84.98, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch):

FieldValue
FarmerSalatiel de Jesús Zavala Ferrufino
CityDipilto
RegionNueva Segovia
Altitude1,300 m
Coffee-growing area7.14 hectares
VarietyCaturra
ProcessingWashed, sun dried
Rank18
Score84.98
Price**8,100.33)
BuyerDillanos Coffee Roasters (USA)

Caturra, washed, dried in the sun, mid-table score, a price a few dollars over commodity. Nothing about it hints at what the same land would do nineteen years later.

2021 — the family’s other coffee

By 2021 the son had taken over both family farms, and both entered the same competition. El Cambalache placed second overall at 90.75. La Esperanza placed 20th at 87.25, selling 396.82 lb at 3,650.74 — to Mokka Specialty Coffee (ACE — Nicaragua 2021, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch).

That is worth sitting with, because it is the honest version of a competition farm’s story. In the same auction, the same producer sold one coffee at 9.20. La Esperanza was, at that point, the family’s second-string coffee.

2025 — Geisha, and first place

Four years later it was the family’s best. La Esperanza entered a washed Geisha — the Ethiopian-descended variety that rewrote coffee prices from Panama outward — and it took first place among the washed coffees at 90.73. As is standard at Cup of Excellence auctions for a winning coffee, the lot was split so more than one buyer could take a share:

LotWeightPriceTotalBuyer
1A198.42 lb$64.40/lb$12,778.25K.V.N. Import Export (1991) Co., Ltd.
1B158.73 lb$66.00/lb$10,476.18Coffee Me Up (Korea) and Two Hands Full (Indonesia)

357.15 lb for 367,380.19, from a top price of 9.00/lb; La Esperanza’s lots were the second and third most expensive of the thirty.

Two changes account for the jump from 2021 to 2025, and neither of them is the mountain. The farm switched from ordinary varieties to Geisha, and the buyers switched from a European specialty roaster to Thai, Korean and Indonesian houses — the East and Southeast Asian buyers who now drive the top end of green-coffee auctions. See Premiumisation for why that second change matters as much as the first.

Second place among the washed coffees that year went to Solidaridad, Ramón Jarquín’s three-hectare Maracaturra plot in Matagalpa, at 90.50 and 52 a pound. The two farms together make the clearest illustration in this wiki of how little score explains about price.

Notable lots / records

YearLotScorePriceAuction
2006Washed Caturra84.98**8,100.33)Cup of Excellence Nicaragua — 18th; bought by Dillanos Coffee Roasters
2021396.82 lb87.25**3,650.74)Cup of Excellence Nicaragua — 20th; bought by Mokka Specialty Coffee
2025Washed Geisha, 2 lots (198.42 + 158.73 lb)90.7366.00/lb ($23,254.43 total)Cup of Excellence Nicaragua — 1st, washed; bought by K.V.N. Import Export, Coffee Me Up (Korea) and Two Hands Full (Indonesia)

Every row is from the Alliance for Coffee Excellence’s own published records, accessed 2026-07-23 and confirmed via WebFetch. The variety for the 2021 lot is not recorded.

Three different farms called La Esperanza

The name collision is the main reason to read this note carefully:

To verify

The Mozonte farm is a different farm. The Coffee Quest, a green-coffee importer, profiles a Finca La Esperanza in Mozonte, Nueva Segovia — 53 hectares of coffee and forest at an average 1,600 m, growing Caturra, Paraíso, Catuaí Rojo, Bourbon and SL34, managed by Luis Alberto Balladarez and his family (The Coffee Quest, accessed 2026-07-23, confirmed via WebFetch). That page does not mention Zavala at all. Different municipality, different family, four times the area, 300 m higher, different varieties. These are two farms sharing a name in the same department — but no source explicitly says so, so the possibility of a sale, a lease or a shared property line is not formally excluded. Do not merge them.

Café Granja La Esperanza is a third thing entirely — a well-known Colombian producer, unrelated to either. It already appears in this wiki’s SL34 note.

Two of the automated research passes feeding this note conflated the Zavala and Balladarez farms. If a source describes “Finca La Esperanza” without naming a municipality and a producer, it cannot be used here.

To verify

Farm size is unclear. ACE’s 2006 entry gives 7.14 hectares under coffee and a separate figure of 7.89 whose unit is not legible in the entry as rendered. No current farm size is published anywhere — the 2006 figure is twenty years old and predates the son’s tenure.

To verify

Who founded it, and the father–son link. That Salatiel Zavala founded La Esperanza and Abner Samuel Zavala is his son comes from a single roaster’s blog (Dimattina Coffee, accessed 2026-07-23) — a trade partner, not a neutral record. The paperwork supports it: ACE’s 2006 entry names Salatiel de Jesús Zavala Ferrufino here, ACE’s 2018 entry names Abner Samuel Zavala Gonzalez at El Cambalache, and Spanish naming convention gives both men Zavala as the paternal surname. Very likely correct; not primary-sourced.

To verify

Nothing is published about the farm’s current state — no altitude update, no size, no tree count, no planting date for the Geisha. ACE’s results table for 2025 records the competition, not the estate, and the family has no website. The 1,300 m figure above is from 2006 and should be treated as the farm’s historic elevation rather than a confirmed current one.

Sources

  1. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Nicaragua 2025 results and auction — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch)
  2. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — farm directory entry 84.98, La Esperanza, Nicaragua 2006 — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch)
  3. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Nicaragua 2021 results and auction — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch)
  4. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — farm directory entry 90.23, El Cambalache, Nicaragua 2018 — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch; the family’s other farm)
  5. The Coffee Quest — Finca La Esperanza, in Mozonte, Nicaragua — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch; a different farm of the same name)
  6. Dimattina Coffee — Nicaragua Finca La Esperanza, Samuel Zavala — accessed 2026-07-23 (confirmed via WebFetch; a roaster that bought the family’s coffee)

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