Source Analysis by Mayra Orellana-Powell & Charlie Habegger
A washed Gesha arrives, by airplane, in the dead of winter. Let us rejoice!
The Crown was made for coffees like this one: rare and difficult to source but something of a benchmark for arabica’s potential at the same time. Galo Morales, for two years now Royal’s sole Ecuador supplier, is one of the very few producers in the world who successfully sells us Geshas. We also air-ship his coffees, which can give them just enough rest to truly peak in flavor when they land in Oakland, but still make the journey vacuum-packed and extremely fresh. This year’s Gesha is silky and tangy with muscat grape, abundant perfume, raspberry, and a hint of anise.
Finca Cruz Loma
Galo Fernando Morales Flores, along with his wife Maria Alexandra Rivera and his extended family, grow coffee on their 350-hectare plot in the community of San José de Minas, a small town in the northwestern part of Pichincha, a short trip north of Quito. They describe their farm, Finca Cruz Loma, as a marvelous paradise whose temperate, tropical climate allows for a huge variety of flora to thrive. The family grows guanábana (soursop), corn, beans, and a plethora of citrus, all in addition to coffee.
The principal harvest months in northern Pichincha are June to September, but Galo and his family continue picking through December. Ecuador’s namesake position on the Earth’s equator means that medium-altitude coffee enjoys practically a perfect year-round growing season, often with flowering and ripe cherry sharing the same branch most months.
Coffee, though always a source of income, has recently brought a lot of recognition for Galo, Maria Alexandra, and the whole family, as winners of Pichincha’s regional quality competition and as featured producers in Ecuador’s national barista competition, both in 2019. In 2020, Cruz Loma took third place in the national “Taza Dorada” quality competition. Across residents and tourists alike Ecuador has a strong domestic market for roasted coffee (part of the reason so little is exported), which means honors such as these have no small impact on a farm’s brand.
Finca Cruz Loma has been in Galo’s family going back 80 years. His grandparents were the first owners, who passed the property to their children, and now he and his four brothers are in charge. Galo’s experience in coffee began 20 years ago working alongside his mother on the farm; he would go on to work professionally in the coffee sector, for exporters and as a project manager, before returning to full-time farming. In Galo’s words, “cultivating my coffee is an activity that allows me to apply and develop the skills and habits I’ve learned over the years; it’s also an essential resource for my family, since my wife, my daughters, and myself are all involved with the production and marketing of our coffee. Everybody in the family has a critical role in the coffee’s success.”
Processing at Cruz Loma
Together, the family oversees four unique processes for their coffee: fully washed; “anaerobic” washed, honey, and natural. This sidra separation was processed as a standard fully washed coffee: cherry was hand-picked and selectively sorted for ripeness and consistency in the field; after depulping the cherry, the parchment was fermented in open tanks for 72 hours, washed clean with fresh water, and then moved to Cruz Loma’s solar dryer where it spent 18-25 days on raised screen beds.
Many times, we look to processing to help us identify attributes in the cup or make sense of what we’re tasting. Extra fermentations, oxygen deprivation, short or long drying times—these will all suggest certain influences on the final coffee. In this case, even with a 72-hour fermentation time, Galo’s washed process for his Gesha is such a straightforward, unremarkable procedure that, delightfully, we really have no choice but to credit the powerful Gesha genetics and Cruz Loma’s terroir for such a result.
