The city of Loja, which sits on the crest of the Andes Mountains in Southern Ecuador, is home to some of the highest grown coffee in Latin America. Over the last three years, Stumptown has worked with the democratically run exporter association, Fapecafes and their coffee producer associations (PROCAFEQ and APECAP) to improve the quality of coffee and in turn improve the quality of life for their members. This Loja coffee comes from a variety of producers within the PROCAFEQ and APECAP coffee growers associations, which are located in the Quilanga canton in the Loja province and the Palanda canton in the Zamora-Chinchipe province, respectively.
Each year when tasting the coffees from these relationships, we find greater clarity and improved balance in the cup which demonstrates one of many benefits of a Direct Trade relationship. This particular lot was assembled from 27 micro-lots that were cupped and approved by the green coffee buying team at Stumptown. These coffees come from small-scale producers, with farms averaging 1.5 hectares in size. They each predominately cultivate Typica varietal trees with Caturra and Bourbon thrown into the mix. All are certified organic and have natural shade grown habitats. In traditional South American fashion this coffee has been processed at micro mills on each of the 27 farms. The coffee cherry is processed with hand-crank depulpers, fermented in small tanks, then washed and laid out to dry on either patios or raised beds.
PROCAFEQ began in 2001 and currently represents 331 producers while APECAP began in 2002 and currently represents 370 producers. While working with Fapecafes, both associations work towards improving the conditions for all their members by offering educational and organizational assistance, improving the quality of the product through new harvest and post-harvest technologies, developing social projects, and encouraging member participation in the larger democratic organization. During 2010 the weather conditions throughout Southern Ecuador were very challenging. There was more flowering which made picking difficult and increased problems with broca. Also known as coffee berry borer, broca is an insect that attacks the coffee cherry throughout its development. To counteract the effects of the broca, PROCAFEQ and APECAP began analyzing the physical quality of each of the lots delivered to them, paying a premium to the lots that had better physical quality, in order to encourage producers to deliver only the highest quality coffee for Stumptown.