Executive Director

Erwin J. Mierisch is a 4th generation coffee producer. His family began coffee farming over a hundred years ago when his great grandfather emigrated to Nicaragua to design the railroad. Part of his payment was in land and he was fascinated by the mountains of Matagalpa where he recognized the potential to grow coffee.

Coffee has been part of his life from early childhood but studies took him into petroleum engineering which he didn't pursue for too long. Erwin dove fully into coffee in 1994 and it became his true passion. Erwin has worked on the entire spectrum of the coffee supply chain since then – from producing, processing, cupping, roasting, exporting, and importing. He has been instrumental in the implementation of specialty quality standards in his own families' farms, which have come to earn several spots as Cup of Excellence winners in two different countries and has been an active advocate for the value of specialty coffee in several countries including his own. Trained as a processing specialist he has had the chance to share his knowledge with producers across the globe.

Erwin's rich history with Cup of Excellence began in 2002 with onboarding the first Nicaragua Cup of Excellence and served as an in-country coordinator. Since then, he has been its operations manager, a skilled head judge, a trainer, and a winning Cup of Excellence® farmer. He was also involved and helped coordinate the Los Favoritos Private Collection Auction.

Languages: Spanish, English