Ecuador Loja Coffee

A highland coffee from Loja province in southern Ecuador, where small farms grow coffee at altitude. The cup is red apple and panela with soft jasmine and cocoa, and it is brewed in a Chemex.

Origin & Story

Loja lies in the far south of Ecuador's Andes. Its coffee grows at roughly 1,500 to 2,100 meters, in volcanic soil, on small farms. Importers describe clean, crisp, citrusy cups with strong acidity and floral complexity, and Loja has become one of the country's best-regarded specialty areas.

It is a smallholder economy. Importers describe farmers in places like Quilanga, where about fifteen producers are organized around the cooperative FAPECAFES, forming associations to improve quality and deal directly with roasters abroad. The varieties include Bourbon, Caturra, Typica Mejorado and Sidra.

In 2021, importers report, Ecuador won its first Cup of Excellence with a Typica Mejorado from Loja, which scored 90.93 points, and the region's coffee began to be noticed far beyond the country.

The recipe here uses a Chemex, the hourglass-shaped glass brewer invented in 1941 by Peter Schlumbohm, a chemist who came to the United States from Germany in 1936 and took his inspiration from laboratory glassware. Its thick bonded paper filter gives a very clean cup, which suits a coffee whose charm is clarity. In the cup, red apple gives a crisp, juicy sweetness, panela a warm caramel depth, and jasmine a light floral lift that appears as the coffee cools, with cocoa rounding off the finish.

Reading the Flavor Profile

These values are comparative editorial positions within our own catalog, calibrated so entries can be ranked against each other. They are not laboratory measurements.