Nicaragua - Circle of Trust
Colin Ganley & Andrea Woolverton
Owners & Founders of Twin Engine Coffee
Purveyors of Fine Coffee & Certified Cigar Sommelier
Trusted Member of the Epic Explorations Circle of Trust
Colin and Andrea are part of the Circle of Trust because they do more than know Nicaragua—they have chosen to invest their lives in its people, communities, and future.
Through Twin Engine Coffee, they have built a company around the belief that more of the value created by Nicaraguan coffee should remain with the people who grow, roast, package, and prepare it. Their work reflects respect for local knowledge, dignified employment, long-term relationships, and the idea that doing business well should also do good.
Colin’s background as a trained Cigar Sommelier and former member of the Cigar Journal team adds extraordinary depth to that connection. He understands Nicaragua’s cigar tradition from the tobacco field to the finished cigar, but his knowledge extends beyond cultivation, blending, and flavor. He knows the growers, craftspeople, factory owners, families, and communities whose lives are woven into the country’s tobacco story.
Andrea brings an equally important perspective through her commitment to locally rooted production and the many people behind Twin Engine Coffee. She recognizes that authenticity cannot be manufactured for visitors. It grows from listening, building relationships, respecting local talent, and ensuring that communities meaningfully participate in the value their work creates.
Most importantly, Colin and Andrea are people we trust to help us enter Nicaragua thoughtfully. They can introduce us to people and places most travelers would never encounter, while helping us approach those relationships with curiosity, humility, and respect.
The Circle of Trust is not about collecting impressive names or securing special access for its own sake. It is about surrounding our guests with people of integrity who can help them understand a place more honestly. Colin and Andrea embody that purpose. They don't just show us Nicaragua; they help us listen to it.
Meet Colin and Andrea
Colin Ganley and Andrea Woolverton are the founders of Twin Engine Coffee, a Nicaragua-based company working to change how specialty coffee moves from the people and places where it is grown to those who ultimately enjoy it.
Rather than exporting raw green coffee and allowing most of its economic value to leave the country, Twin Engine Coffee selects, roasts, packages, and prepares its coffee for shipment in Nicaragua. Farmers, tasters, roasters, designers, artisans, packagers, and other local partners participate in the process, helping more of the value created by coffee remain within the communities where it originates.
Colin brings another fascinating layer to their story. He is a trained Cigar Sommelier with extensive knowledge of premium cigars, tobacco cultivation, production, aging, and cigar culture. From 2007 through 2015, he worked with Cigar Journal, writing about cigars, producers, destinations, and the traditions surrounding them. He is also the author of Le Snob: Cigars and has written for other international cigar publications.
His expertise extends beyond simply evaluating a finished cigar. Colin understands how tobacco varieties, soil, climate, curing, fermentation, aging, blending, and craftsmanship influence the final experience. He also understands the people behind the product—from growers and leaf processors to rollers, blenders, factory owners, and the families whose histories are intertwined with Nicaragua’s tobacco industry.
Andrea brings a deep commitment to purposeful enterprise, locally made products, and community-centered economic development. Her work helps connect Twin Engine Coffee with the farmers, craftspeople, designers, team members, and families who make the company possible. Together, Colin and Andrea have created a business that combines quality with responsibility and invites consumers to understand the consequences of where and how something is produced.
Twin Engine Coffee exclusively uses mountain-grown Nicaraguan Arabica coffee, selecting distinctive microlots shaped by elevation, volcanic soil, climate, sunlight, and the surrounding ecosystem. The coffee is roasted and packaged at origin, preserving a closer connection among the land, the people who produce it, and the person who eventually pours the cup.
What Colin and Andrea have created is more than a coffee company. It is an invitation to rethink what “local” can mean in a connected world—and to recognize the people, knowledge, and landscapes behind the things we enjoy.
Guests spending time with Colin, Andrea, and the people connected to Twin Engine Coffee should experience Nicaragua through its land, flavors, craftsmanship, and stories. They should encounter coffee and tobacco not simply as finished products, but as agricultural traditions shaped by volcanic soil, mountain microclimates, generations of knowledge, and many skilled hands. Whether tasting origin-roasted coffee, visiting a growing region, observing a cigar maker at work, or sharing a conversation with someone whose livelihood is connected to the land, guests should leave with a deeper appreciation for the people and processes behind every cup of coffee and every thoughtfully crafted cigar.
What Colin and Andrea Bring to an Epic Explorations Journey
Colin and Andrea bring an intimate understanding of Nicaraguan coffee, agriculture, entrepreneurship, craftsmanship, and community development. They can help guests see beyond the familiar language of specialty coffee and understand the much larger human and economic story.
Colin’s background as a trained Cigar Sommelier and former contributor to Cigar Journal adds another extraordinary dimension. His knowledge can help guests explore Nicaragua’s premium tobacco tradition with context and discernment—from the fields and curing barns to fermentation rooms, blending tables, and the hands of skilled cigar rollers.
Coffee and tobacco share a strong sense of terroir. Both are influenced by soil, elevation, rainfall, sunlight, farming methods, processing, time, and human judgment. Colin can help guests recognize those connections while explaining how agriculture becomes craftsmanship and how craftsmanship becomes an expression of place.
Andrea brings insight into creating an enterprise that keeps skills, jobs, and economic value closer to the source. Together, they can transform a tasting or factory visit into a much broader conversation about land, livelihoods, sustainability, culture, and dignity.
They also bring something essential to every Epic Explorations journey: context. They connect what guests see, taste, and experience with the people and places responsible for creating it.
What Colin and Andrea May Help With
Colin and Andrea may help Epic Explorations:
- Introduce guests to Nicaragua’s coffee and tobacco traditions
- Create thoughtful coffee tastings and sensory experiences
- Explain the journey from coffee tree to finished cup
- Interpret the influence of volcanic soil, elevation, and microclimates
- Introduce the traditions of Nicaraguan premium cigar production
- Explain tobacco growing, curing, fermentation, aging, blending, and rolling
- Create carefully considered coffee-and-cigar pairing experiences
- Connect guests with farmers, roasters, cigar makers, artisans, and local team members
- Provide context for visits to coffee farms, tobacco fields, factories, and workshops
- Explore the differences between mass production and skilled, small-batch craftsmanship
- Share a different model of ethical and community-centered enterprise
- Reveal the relationship among agriculture, conservation, employment, and dignity
- Help us approach Nicaraguan communities with greater understanding and respect
- Connect coffee and tobacco with the broader stories of Nicaragua’s land, culture, and people
Why They Are Part of the Circle of Trust
Colin and Andrea belong in the Circle of Trust because they understand Nicaragua from within its communities and industries. They have invested themselves in the country rather than simply conducting business there.
Andrea helps reveal what can happen when production, creativity, employment, and economic value remain closer to the source. Colin brings specialized knowledge of both coffee and premium cigars, along with years of experience researching, writing about, and interpreting cigar culture.
Together, they can open doors while also helping us understand what lies behind them. They know that meaningful access comes with responsibility—the responsibility to listen, show respect, tell stories honestly, and recognize the skill and dignity of the people whose work we encounter.
That combination of relationships, knowledge, discernment, and respect is precisely what the Epic Explorations Circle of Trust is meant to represent.
Their Perspective
Colin and Andrea invite us to look beyond the finished product.
A cup of coffee begins in the soil, long before it reaches a roaster or brewer. A premium cigar begins as a seed and passes through years of cultivation, curing, fermentation, aging, blending, and skilled handwork before it is ever enjoyed.
Their perspective encourages us to ask deeper questions. Who grew this? Who transformed it? What knowledge was required? How much of its value remained in the community? What does its flavor tell us about the land? What traditions and livelihoods are carried within it?
Through Twin Engine Coffee and Colin’s experience within the cigar world, they show how everyday objects can become doorways into agriculture, history, economics, craftsmanship, and culture.
What resonates with me about Colin and Andrea is their ability to reveal the extraordinary story behind something familiar.
Most of us have enjoyed coffee without considering the distance it has traveled or the number of hands involved in bringing it to us. The same is true of a fine cigar. We encounter the finished product, but rarely see the farms, curing barns, roasting rooms, workshops, family histories, and accumulated knowledge behind it.
Colin’s experience as a Cigar Sommelier and writer gives him the ability to explain those details without reducing the experience to a technical lecture. He understands flavor and craftsmanship, but he also understands history, people, and place. Andrea complements that knowledge with a clear commitment to creating meaningful work and retaining more value within Nicaragua.
Together, they represent the kind of people we want our guests to encounter—knowledgeable without being pretentious, deeply connected to place, and willing to help others understand why the story behind something matters.
A journey shaped with Colin and Andrea would not simply include coffee tasting and cigar smoking. It would follow two of Nicaragua’s defining crops from the soil to the finished experience, meeting the people whose hands, judgment, and traditions make each one possible.
That is where coffee and cigars become more than products. They become ways of understanding Nicaragua.
Experience Nicaragua Through the People Who Know It Best
Colin and Andrea are trusted voices helping Epic Explorations reveal Nicaragua through its coffee, premium cigars, agricultural traditions, skilled craftspeople, and the communities that give each experience its meaning.