Ecuador
Fausto Romo
Finca Carolina
Pichincha
1300masl
Sidra
Washed

White peach, kiwi fruit, and pink florals.

From Cows to Coffee: Fausto Romo didn’t start in coffee. His early days were spent raising purebred Holstein cows, imported from Colombia. He had 10 female cows and a bull, producing 140 litres of milk every two weeks.

But one day, his uncle Olmedo Romo (already a coffee grower) suggested he plant a hectare of coffee, especially the Sidra variety. Fausto listened…and ended up planting three hectares! "It wasn’t an easy start, because I had to invest money for 2 years so I had to sell 5 cows. After 2 years the financial issues at home started to fade away because we had our coffee to sell."

Fausto says it’s a beautiful thing to see the coffee trees flowering --"you can smell the sweet aromas from a distance and watch the bees gathering nectar". When his first harvest came in, Cafe Imports (our green partners) bought his coffee, and Fausto discovered something new: "Now I like to drink coffee, before I didn’t drink it, now I
drink it every day, it’s delicious." (It sure is!)

Sidra, a cross-breed native: Fausto is passionate about Sidra. He swears it’s meant to grow in Ecuador’s climate. Sidra is a unique hybrid, a native reportedly either/both derivative of Bourbon and Typica of/and a hybrid developed by Nestlé (well who'd have thunk!). Well, whatever it is, it delivers an incredible cup--fragrant, sweet, floral, and vibrant.

Clean and simple (it's all in the hips): At Finca Carolina, everything is kept clean and classic with a washed process. After picking, the coffee cherries are depulped, fermented, and washed. Drying happens on patios, often protected by plastic covers to deal with the region’s cloud forest humidity.

Coffee in the Clouds: Finca Carolina sits in the Pichincha region, high in Ecuador’s northern Andes. Even though the area isn't the highest in elevation, the temperatures stay nice and cool, with misty cloud cover rolling in during the afternoons. These conditions help slow down coffee cherry maturation, leading to sweeter, more complex flavours in the cup.

A growing scene (that's not punny): When Cafe Imports first sourced coffee from Ecuador in 2012, they were pioneers (the first to export specialty coffees from Pichincha!). Since then, Ecuador has faced some challenges, like low production levels, tricky logistics, and not a lot of incentives for growers. Still, the future looks bright. Ongoing investment and relationship-building are seeing Ecuador steadily becoming a real hotspot for specialty microlots.