Mario Gonzalez’s farm El Avión, meaning ‘the plane’, is located in the region of Mozonte in Nueva Segovia, Nicaragua. Before 2006, the land that currently supports the El Avion coffee farm was used for forestry, particularly pine trees. In that year, the production of timber in the area was significantly reduced by law, so the Gonzalez family made the momentous decision to move into producing coffee. On land never touched by a coffee plant, the Gonzalez family started from scratch and transformed the pine forest plantation into a fantastic coffee farm. Assisted by Mario’s son-in-law Jario, a qualified agronomist, the family planted a range of trees beneath the shade of the large conifers. The shade from these large trees provides ample conditions for growing the coffee plants, and the fallen pine needles provide ample ground covering that does not affect the amount of rainwater thay plants receive.

Mario and his family grow catuai and catimor at El Avión and use a variety of processing methods for single and mixed lots of these varietals. Using washed, natural and carbonic maceration processing, El Avión offers a range of flavour profiles and expressions of the farm and of the Mozonte region. The carbonic maceration coffees are processed with the help of Project Origin and Bridazul. Since 2019, Project Origin and Bridazul have collaborated on a joint initiative committed to improving the livelihoods and incomes of coffee producers in Nueva Segovia through improvement of farming practices and implementation of a range of carbonic maceration processing techniques, and they help craft the beautiful coffees from Mario’s El Avión.