$21.50
Country: Ecuador
Region: Loja - South Ecuador near Peru
Varieties: Bourbon, Caturra, Typica
Process: Washed
Elevation: 1200-2000 MASL (3900 - 6600 feet above sea level)
Senior green-coffee buyer Piero Cristiani (left) has spent several years really actively seeking, nurturing, and maintaining relationships with growers in this country, and he has come to very strongly believe in the potential to uncover and even assist in the development of more and more 90+ point microlot coffees, as well as some exceptional Regional lots over time. We look at the future of Ecuador’s fine-coffee industry with very optimistic eyes—and cups!
The Regional Select program was created to highlight the unique profiles that are inherent to various microclimates in many of the countries from which we acquire green coffee. Local variables like wind patterns, soil quality, sunlight, elevation, and other environmental influencers have much to do with the common characteristics that separate, say, a Northern Colombian from a Southern Colombian coffee, just as they inform the differences between a Colombian and a Kenyan.
Loja is located in the South of Ecuador and borders Northern Peru. The Andean mountain range makes up 80% of the region which also is surrounded by the Zamora and Malacatos rivers, and is in between the Amazon basin Peruvian Sechura Desert. The geography is prime for specialty coffee production. Temperatures during the day are warm and temperate and during the night, cool air rolls in off the mountains creating an environment in which coffee thrives. Generational coffee producers live off their land and cultivate other agricultural products and livestock in this tropical forest.
