Ricardo Vargas' 20 hectare farm is close the equator in the Quito region of Ecuador.
Although beginning as a food engineer in the private sector, he has held a long time interest in coffee farming due to his father-in-law having a coffee farm and wanting to increase job opportunities in the local area. Ricardo realised his dream of having his own coffee growing farm in 2014, when he, his wife and brother-in-law began farming coffee.
Since then, he has allocated 7 hectares of his farm to coffee, growing Caturra and Typica varieties. Ricardo has improved the quality of the produce of the farm through his selection of specific trees for shade, slow drying his coffee beans to allow the flavours to develop fully, and installing a mill for processing. His hard work and meticulous attention to detail in developing his farm shine through in this coffee.
This coffee jumped out at us when tasting a whole table of Ecuador coffees. What stuck us most was the refined balance it had of lemon acidity, peach sweetness and chocolate bitterness. It all come together so perfectly making us very excited to offer this as our first coffee from Ecuador.
