El Hormiguero — the anthill — is a small farm of about twelve hectares nestled in the mountains of Mosonte, a municipality in the northern region of Nueva Segovia, Nicaragua. The name feels fitting: something quiet, persistent, and full of life happening just beneath the surface.
The farm belongs to Freddy Blandino, a second-generation producer whose father, Don Roman, passed on part of his own farm, El Recuerdo, to his son. Father and son still work side by side across both farms today. El Hormiguero is farmed entirely under shade, without weeding, and Freddy deliberately leaves dead tree trunks scattered across the land to shelter the farm's biodiversity. Every detail is intentional.
The farm is planted exclusively with Bourbon Tekesic, a selected strain of Bourbon developed by El Salvador's coffee research institute through mass selection in the 1950s and 60s, isolating the plants with the most compelling cup qualities. It's a delicate variety — not the easiest to grow — but one that rewards patience with remarkable complexity.
According to Tim Willems of Bridazul, El Hormiguero has something the neighboring farms simply don't: "I don't know what Freddy does differently, he doesn't always let us in on everything, but it works."
Freddy nearly left Nicaragua for the United States. It was his encounter with Tim and Claudia at Bridazul that changed course. Together, they began evaluating the coffees from both his farms, finding markets, and building something worth staying for. Today, 100% of El Hormiguero's production is sold through Bridazul. During the off-season, Freddy works on neighboring farms, a quiet but telling sign of how rooted he's become in the community.
Bridazul was founded in 2019 by Claudia Lovo, a Nicaraguan producer who pioneered carbonic maceration in the country alongside Sasa Sestic, and Tim Willems, a Belgian with deep roots in European specialty coffee who fell in love with Nicaragua, in more ways than one. Their project brings together around fifty small and mid-sized farms in Nueva Segovia, offering shared infrastructure, fermentation know-how, and a long-term vision for a region facing the full force of climate change.
