About Bayardo Reyes of Nicaragua

Bayardo Reyes is a third generation coffee grower: his grandfather, Rigoberto, established a coffee farm in the mountains of Matagalpa in the early 1920’s, and Mauricio, Bayardo’s father expanded it. But when the Sandinistas political party took power in 1979 and confiscated the family’s land, a teenaged Bayardo went to live in the United States. Through high school, college, and several tours in the U.S. Army, his family’s coffee legacy was in his heart, and in 1991 he purchased a small piece of land near the original farm.

“I wanted to help people around there grow coffee and show them what I learned from my dad and granddad,” Bayardo said in a recent interview. While his vision is to produce high-quality, specialty-grade coffee—which he does—Reyes, a civil engineer and major in the U.S. Army, works with an agronomist and his mother to create not just great coffee but also socially responsible and sustainable practices. “The whole thing was never about coffee,” said Bayardo. “It was about helping people, and the coffee made it possible.”