Our work with Lugmapata’s Mejorado has been about discovery. We have come to truly love this coffee, making it the focus of fun and educational processing experiments. Each harvest brings new depth and clarity to these efforts, and we are excited to keep building on this foundation. In this cup we find pineapple, honeysuckle, and strawberry jam.
Mejorado
Pallatanga
1,700 masl
May, 2024
Hand-picked at peak ripeness. Floated. Held in-cherry for 24 hours. De-pulped. Wet-fermented for five days. Washed. Dried in the sun for five hours, then in a mechanical dryer for three days.
Enrique has become one of our key producing partners over the eight years we’ve worked together. His farm, Finca Lugmapata, placed 3rd in Ecuador’s national coffee competition, Taza Dorada, in 2016 and won 1st place in 2017. A dedicated and meticulous producer, Enrique is committed to producing the highest quality coffee possible. He has also developed a coffee nursery open to his entire community, offering training and education to help others start producing specialty coffee. Working with Finca Lugmapata is a privilege, and we are proud to share their beautiful coffees.
Mejorado is a very unique variety mainly grown in Ecuador. Though it is colloquially known as Typica Mejorado, we now know—thanks to genetic testing by World Coffee Reseach—that it is actually a Bourbon variety cross-pollinated with an Ethiopian Landrace variety.
The cost of getting a coffee from cherry to beverage varies enormously depending on its place of origin and the location of its consumption. The inclusion of price transparency is a starting point to inform broader conversation around the true costs of production and the sustainability of specialty coffee as a whole.