COLIN GANLEY
Woodworking Locally; Building Our Displays in Esteli, Nicaragua
In order to attractively display our coffee in a variety of locations, we make and provide hand-crafted, wooden displays.
We start by selecting high quality, well cured wood so that the displays remain straight and strong during their lives. Here you can see the combination of pegs and glue that we use to make sure that each shelf stays in place. The shelves also give stability to the overall structure. The solid wood pegs will be sanded down so that they are flush with the sides of the display.
Once the shelves, posts, and backsplash have been securely assembled, the whole display is sanded smooth. After becoming smooth, we clean and stain the display with a sprayer.
The sprayer gives a light, even coat to the wood which brings out its natural grain and reddish hue. The light stain emphasizes the natural beauty of the wood we have selected.
This approach to the wood is similar to the way that we select and roast our coffee. We want to use the best materials and apply the best local skill to bring out that natural beauty.
Making the display stand out in its environment is important for us because we want customers to instantly see our coffee wherever it is.
So we use heat and plates to press silver foil into wooden pieces for the front of the display. The silver reveals our logo and some information about the coffee. In silver, we have written that Twin Engine Coffee is freshly roasted and of the highest quality in Nicaragua.
These wooden plaques are then hand applied to the front section of each shelf. We hope that these artistic touches and the quality of the display will show customers how much effort and care we put into every aspect of Twin Engine Coffee.
So finally, when the display is done, each shelf holds 12 full size bags of coffee. On the four shelves a total of 48 bags can be displayed. In this picture you can see that we have our Estate Blend, Espresso, and Organic coffees all displayed at The Wine Store in Managua, Nicaragua.
At the top of the display you can see a burlap section of one of our coffee bags. An artist in Leon, Nicaragua painted our logo on that burlap. We think it gives a nice sense of where the coffee has come from.
What do you think? We like to hear feedback on our various projects. It helps us to feel good about what we have done and to improve as we move forward.
You can also see these displays in Nostalgia Cigars locations in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua and Managua Nicaragua. We hope that these will be all around Nicaragua in the coming months.