Eladio Chamba and his family cultivate three hectares of coffee on their farm—Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe—in southern Ecuador. Decades of farming pigs on this land has enriched the soil, and today it’s grown to be lush with coffee, food crops, and a shade canopy. For years Eladio sold his coffee on the local market, where it would be consolidated into large blends. But in 2015, he purchased a small depulper and began processing his own washed coffee. This shift enabled him to offer his coffee directly to specialty exporters, who quickly recognized the incredible quality he had unlocked. We first purchased Eladio’s coffee in 2016 after an introduction through coffee exporter Caravela Coffee. Its seasonal return to our menu is highly anticipated by both customers and staff—not just for its exceptional quality, but for the unique connection it offers to a single family’s farm.   

Ecuador’s specialty coffee market is small, competitive, and progressive. News about new processing techniques that fetch high prices travels fast. On our most recent visits to Ecuador, nearly every farm we saw carried out some kind of processing experiment on their coffee to differentiate themselves in this competitive landscape. Always eager to innovate, Eladio has continued experimenting with anaerobically fermenting coffee. This year, after the coffee was pulped, it was sealed in a large, plastic drum outfitted with an airlock. After 30 hours of oxygen-free fermentation, the coffee was washed with clean water and dried on raised beds. The resulting cup offers a complex spectrum of stone fruit flavors and honeysuckle-like florals.