Source Analysis by Mayra Orellana-Powell & Charlie Habegger
Sidra may have mythical origins as a cultivar, but that doesn’t make it any less incredible in the cup when produced well. For many cuppers, Sidra’s ability to express Ethiopia-like aromatics and fresh tropical fruits and herbs is what endears them to Ecuador’s coffee sector as a whole; Sidra after all was discovered here, the way Gesha was discovered in Panama, and by now the cultivar as grown in Pichincha is considered one of the best washed terroirs in the world.
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. It’s familiar but startlingly good and immediately evokes a sense of place, the way a great Nyeri does, the fun of it being that for many this place is brand new.
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 honey: 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 48 hours and then moved without any further washing to Cruz Loma’s solar dryer where it spent 18-25 days on raised screen beds.
Honey process coffees typically forego any fermentation step after depulping, instead going straight to drying with all the fibrous mucilage entangled around it. In this case, the mucilage has been broken down quite a bit and the parchment sheds some of it as a result. The resulting cup is still, compared to the washed Sidra lot we also bought, noticeably thick and sweet, with frosting-like sugars, fruit candy, peach tea, and chocolate.
Sidra’s Origins
Sidra, or “bourbon sidra” is believed to be some kind of hybrid of bourbon and typica—more specifically Bourbon and an “Ethiopian landrace”, which in genetic testing unfortunately just refers to any unspecified group of arabicas believed to originate in East Africa. It’s also widely believed that Sidra was developed on Nestlé’s research estate in northern Ecuador, and then somehow disseminated after the research estate’s closure. Some still believe it was first discovered by Pichincha farmers, noticing the plant’s unique upright stature, much in the same way Gesha was first identified in Panama in the early 2000s.
Today almost all the world’s Sidra is still only grown in northern Ecuador and Colombia. The narrow growing region for Sidra, combined with its strong personality in the cup and limited terroir, has helped Sidra maintain a kind of marketplace all to itself. It doesn’t hurt that it can be this good, either.
