01 — History & place

A short history of Ecuadorian coffee

Ecuador has grown coffee since the early nineteenth century, but for most of that time it was a modest, low-profile producer — much of the crop sold cheaply as commodity, some of it coastal robusta, and plenty of farmers gave it up altogether for other crops or to emigrate. What the country always had, though, was extraordinary geography: the Andes run right down its middle, giving it some of the highest coffee land on earth.

That was the raw material for a remarkable turnaround. From the 2010s, a handful of pioneering farms — several in Pichincha, near Quito — began growing distinctive local varieties and experimenting with radical processing, and the results started winning the world's biggest competitions and topping auctions at eye-watering prices. In the space of a few years, tiny Ecuador went from afterthought to one of the most sought-after names in specialty coffee.

Where Ecuador grows its coffee

Coffee grows the length of the Andes and, unusually, in every kind of Ecuadorian landscape — highland, coast, Amazon edge, even the Galápagos. The names that matter for specialty, though, are the high ones.

The traditional specialty heartland is the far south: Loja and, over the ridge, Zamora-Chinchipe, high cloud-forest country that gives clean, fruity, complex coffee. In the north, Pichincha, around Quito, is the home of the Sidra and of much of the experimental-processing revolution, while Imbabura and Carchi climb higher still. To the south-west, El Oro is sweet and bright, and down on the warm coast, Manabí grows much of the country's robusta.

Because so much of it grows so high and in such small quantities, the best Ecuadorian coffee is picked and sorted with enormous care — the starting point for the precision that follows.

02 — Plant & process

Sidra, Typica Mejorado and the exotics

Ecuador's fame rests, above all, on a variety: Sidra. An Ecuadorian selection of Bourbon–Typica lineage, it produces a cup that barely tastes like ordinary coffee — jasmine and orange blossom, tropical fruit, a silky, tea-like body — closer to a Gesha than to anything else, and it has become a competition superstar. Alongside it grows Typica Mejorado, another home-grown selection of similar finesse, and the celebrated Gesha itself, as well as the classic Bourbon, Typica and Caturra. Almost all of the fine coffee is arabica; the coast grows robusta.

Experimental processing

If the variety is half the story, the processing is the other half. Ecuador's top farms have pushed processing further than almost anyone — beyond washed, honey and natural into long, sealed, carefully controlled anaerobic fermentations, carbonic maceration, thermal shock and other near-laboratory techniques, some running for many days. On high-altitude Sidra, these methods build wild, intense, hyper-fruity, sometimes boozy flavours, and it is this combination — rare variety plus radical process — that has carried Ecuadorian lots to the top of international auctions.

However adventurous the fermentation, it is the slow, meticulous drying afterward that keeps these delicate, aromatic coffees intact.

Harvest: it depends where you are

Sitting right on the equator, Ecuador has no single harvest — the timing shifts from region to region with the local rains. In the specialty south, around Loja and Zamora-Chinchipe, the main harvest runs through the middle of the year, roughly May to October; other zones pick at other times, so somewhere in the country coffee is nearly always coming in.

03 — Taste & quality

What Ecuadorian coffee tastes like

There are two very different Ecuadors in the cup. The traditional one is pleasant and unremarkable — mild, sweet and chocolatey, easy everyday coffee. The other one is extraordinary. A high-grown Sidra, or an experimental-process lot, can be one of the most flavour-dense coffees made anywhere: intensely floral with jasmine and orange blossom, exploding with tropical fruit — mango, lychee, passion fruit — tea-like and wine-like, sometimes funky and boozy from a long fermentation, all carried on the searing clarity that extreme altitude gives. It is coffee as showpiece, and it is priced to match.

Roast is a light touch here. The whole point of a Sidra or an experimental lot is its aroma and fruit, so it is roasted light, to protect the very things you paid for; take one dark and you simply burn the magic away.

Grading and the auction

Ecuador does not really trade on a national grading system. Its fine coffee is sold on its name — the farm, the variety, the process and the cupping score — direct to roasters and, increasingly, through high-profile auctions, where the best Sidra and experimental lots regularly rank among the most expensive coffees on earth. When you buy specialty Ecuador, you are buying a specific lot from a specific farm, and that is exactly what tells you how remarkable it will be.

04 — Into the cup

How to brew Ecuadorian coffee

A great Ecuadorian Sidra or experimental lot is all about aroma and delicacy, so brew it the way you would a Gesha: gently and cleanly, and get out of the way. Filter and pour-over are its home — a clean V60, a slightly coarser grind, an unhurried pour — all of which let the florals and tropical fruit unfold. Save the dark roasts, the milk and the heavy extractions for other coffees. Traditional Ecuadorian lots, meanwhile, make a lovely, easy everyday filter or espresso.

As a rule, treat a Sidra or an experimental lot like the rare thing it is — brew it clean and gentle as pour-over and drink it black — and treat traditional Ecuadorian coffee as the easy everyday cup it is. However you brew it, look after the beans: buy them whole, keep them sealed away from heat and light, and use them within a few weeks of roasting. If you'd like to taste Ecuador for yourself, our Ecuadorian coffees below are a good place to start.