Ecuador Loja Servio Gonzales GrainPro

Coffee Background

Have you ever paused to think about all of the amazing origin countries that the equator passes through? The most obvious, Ecuador, might not be the first to come to mind. Ecuador is one of the more elusive origins, likely the result of a high cost of production, which makes it more difficult to compete in a global market. A producer’s survival here depends on an ability to make a premium to cover the higher costs of labor. This is the strategy taken by Servio González Jiménez, who cultivates coffee, lemons, oranges, papaya, bananas, and yuca under a forest of natural trees on a 20-acre farm called Finca Clara Luz. His focus is quality, which was recognized with a second place finish in the 2018 Gold Cup Best and fifth place finish in the 2019 Best of Loja coffee competitions. He starts the process with meticulous cherry harvesting confirmed with a Brix measurement above 20. Next the cherries are washed, floated to remove less dense and damaged beans, and hand sorted. After 12 hours of fermenting, the beans are depulped and fermented in a bath of water for another 15 hours to remove the sticky mucilage. After fermenting, the water is removed and the coffee is taken to raised beds with a combination of sun and shade over a period of 15 days to gently bring the moisture down to 11 percent. The finished parchment is stored in grainpro bags until it is time to mill and export.