A BRIEF HISTORY ABOUT THE FARM
Juan Peña is a notable coffee producer in Ecuador, known for its agricultural innovation, and commitment to quality. In 2009, he started growing coffee outside Saraguro, near the small community of La Papaya in Loja. He currently manages 16 hectares of production out of a total of 25 hectares, all of which range in elevation between 1,800 and 2,100 masl. The farm cultivated unique cultivars such as Geisha, Sidra, and Typica Mejorado; F1 hybrid varieties which produced both high yields and good cup quality.

Typica Mejorado is unrelated to the Typica variety. It most likely got this name because its sensory profile is very similar to Typica, but with more complex and expressive flavor notes. The Pichincha breeding lab’s researchers imported various coffee seeds, primarily from Ethiopia, to create these new F1 hybrid varieties, according to what many coffee experts believe.

Cherries for this Reserve Lot are handpicked by only two experts. Cherries are then sorted to remove any immature or damaged ones before being pulped and fermented for 18 to 24 hours. The coffee is then dried in one of five separate drying rooms, each of which is assigned to a different method.