ST. THOMAS, ONT. -- From the coffee plantations in Nicaragua to a roastery in St. Thomas, a pair of sisters is working to take the coffee industry to the next level.
Coffee has always been a part of Maria Fiallos’s life growing up on a coffee plantation back in Nicaragua.
“My grandfather and great grandfather had been growing coffee there since the late 1800s and my father was also a coffee grower,” she says.
With coffee being a big part of their family history, Fiallos and her sister Valeria Fiallos-Soliman decided to open a roastery when they came to Canada.
“When we started roasting, coffee from Nicaragua was considered a filler,” says Fiallos-Soliman.
"Everything was Colombian, Columbian, Columbian, so we decided to open and thought, you know what, we know we have good coffee, we know it’s not a filler coffee and people need to know that!”
The pair took what they learned growing up as children on the coffee plantation and brought that craft to St. Thomas.
“We learned to roast watching my mom do it on a cast iron pan on the wood oven on the farm and it was all by sight and sound so when we started roasting that’s how we did it sight and sound,” says Fiallos-Soliman.
The roastery is called Las Chicas del Café and has been in operation for 15 years.
The sisters roast around a dozen blends of Nicaraguan coffees, some sourced from their family farm back home and the rest from other small plantations in Nicaragua.
“We are very familiar with the struggles of a small coffee grower and for us that is the driving part,” says Fiallos. “We are not going to ask a coffee grower to take a nickel less for their coffee.”
If you don’t want to buy and brew the coffee yourself, coffee lovers can now sit and have a cup of Nicaraguan coffee right in the heart of St. Thomas.
The pair recently opened a coffee shop called Streamliners, which is across the road from the roastery.
“None of my coffee is brewed ahead of time. My customers know when they come to Streamliners they are going to have wait maybe five minutes for their cup of coffee to be brewed, but each cup of coffee is brewed for them,” says Fiallos.
She adds that what sets them apart is that coffee at Streamliners is treated with the love and respect that her family feels it deserves.
“We see brewing coffee as a loving gesture, as a human connection and the opportunity to really connect with someone.”
Moving forward the sisters hope to see both the coffee shop and roastery continue to grow and boost both the economy in St. Thomas and back home in Nicaragua.
