Barista on Demand, LLC uses Santa Lucia Estate coffees exclusively in the office coffee market. We used to serve the restaurant market with a previous business and heard a lot about this great coffee. We believe that the combination of great taste and social responsibility go together. Estate Coffee is the response to America’s smarter and more demanding consumer, and the coffee which America’s better, and more savvy hotels and restaurants are serving today.
The large turnaround in the Washington area market can be credited to the introduction of the Santa Lucia Estate Coffee program and the efforts of William Gutierrez. Teaming with the vision of a fine coffee roaster in New York David Dallis, President of DallisC offee the pair gained the support of believers in this new concept. It took the attention of Chefs like Roberto Donna, Jeffrey Buben, Robert Wiedmaier in Washington, DC and Danny Meyer and Douglas Rodriguez in New York City to launch the confidence in the industry and begin a new direction in the important finish to a diner’s meal.
It was ten years ago when Gutierrez, a Nicaraguan native living in Washington DC and importer of Sesame Seeds was looking into the possibility of importing additional Nicaraguan goods. Coffee was one of the products which had suffered by the US embargo during his country’s 10 year Sandinista revolution-but it had once had a wonderful reputation in the US market. To confirm his ideas he headed to the annual Specialty Coffee Association Trade Show and met David Dallis, incoming President of SCAA who was a leading roaster based in New York. David’s vision for his presidency was twofold: to develop the concept of estate coffees and to improve coffee in the restaurant setting.
Gutierrez and Dallis started their exploration by meeting with Roberto Donna of Galileo and discovering how mediocre the coffee served at his flagship restaurant was. Coffee was never a priority and this same fact would continue to be the common thread in most of the better restaurants visited by Gutierrez. Thus a niche was found: Chefs were not very educated on coffee, and were definitely not paying attention to this flavor.
With this door now open Gutierrez began visiting other “Friends” like
Greggory Hill at Gabriel and Jeffrey Buben at Vidalia. Talk about his
program began with no advertising or additional sales force: only word of
mouth and community participation. Ten years ago Mr. Gutierrez began the
Washington Restaurant program and today it boasts many of the city’s best
hotels and restaurants. Beans are hand picked and delivered to the consumer
without being mixed or blended with inferior product. Similar to grapes used
for wine production, the same is true for estate coffee: graded in the
sorting process only the best beans of these select farms wind up in Estate
Coffee.
The coffee program has been recognized nationally by the Ruth’s Chris Steak House Restaurant Chain and opened eyes to the changing face of coffee in the restaurant setting today. Truly differentiating this coffee program clients are James Beard Award winners, Four Star Chefs, Fine Hotels and those with a common goal: to offer the best, for their bistros, cafés or fine dining room settings.
The future for Santa Lucia Estate Coffee and the Estate coffee world can only be more exciting. New customers with more educated palates bring more requests for the bright cup of coffee at the end of the meal. Even food critics are beginning to acknowledge coffee in their reviews. Now you can enjoy this great coffee at work with Barista on Demand's new premium office coffee service!
Grown in the fertile highlands of the Matagalpa region at altitudes of up to 5,000 feet, our shade grown Santa Lucia Estate Coffee is selectively hand-picked, washed, sundried and carefully sorted by size. Vital to this labor intensive process is maintaining the traditional work habits of the farm. A goal of our Estate Coffee program is to pay a premium to the farm, and give back to the workers and their families who provide us with the beautiful coffee cherries we are able to harvest to produce Santa Lucia Estate Coffee.
With the premium we are able to give the farm from our Estate Coffee program we are able to provide homes, food and schooling for the workers and their children, which reflects the pride, confidence and concern Santa Lucia has in their workers and their culture. In-turn, the workers see the rewards in adhering to strict quality standards as they are producing the very best product which is able to compete on the international coffee market today.
With every cup of Santa Lucia Estate Coffee you drink, you too are making a difference to the coffee culture of Nicaragua.