Let this coffee take you on a journey to the farm that put Ecuadorean specialty coffee on the map. Welcome to the world-famous Hacienda La Papaya, located around 2,000 meters above sea level near the town of Saraguro in Southern Ecuador. Here, owner and operator Juan Peña pursues superior-level quality and craft, growing La Papaya into one of South America's most prominent coffee farms.
Don’t let the nomenclature fool you—this Typica varietal coffee is anything but “typical.” This lot was processed in the anaerobic natural method, a highly involved and advanced form of coffee processing in which beans ferment anaerobically (with limited or no oxygen) before drying. In this case, whole coffee cherries luxuriated in sealed rum oak barrels for five days. Fermentation complete, the beans were moved to a temperature-controlled drying room where they laid out for a whole month to dry. It’s a long and painstaking process—and all that careful attention shows up in the cup, expressing a complexly winey, fruity flavor with a depth of sweetness.
