🇪🇨 Galo Morales

Ecuador produces almost no coffee by regional standards. The country consumes most of what it grows and exports a rounding error compared to Colombia next door. What does leave tends to be very good, because the only producers bothering with the export paperwork are the ones with something worth exporting.

Sidra, and anaerobic washing

Sidra is the interesting half of this lot. It’s a relatively recent Ecuadorian variety, generally understood to descend from a Bourbon–Typica cross with Ethiopian landrace material somewhere in its history. It produces a cup much closer to a Gesha than its parentage suggests, at a fraction of a Gesha’s price.

Anaerobic washed processing seals the coffee in oxygen-free tanks during fermentation, then washes it conventionally. Removing oxygen changes which microbes dominate and slows the whole process, which gives more control and produces fruit-forward, wine-like esters. The final wash then keeps the cup clean rather than letting it go jammy the way a natural would.

What it tastes like

Passionfruit and lychee, a floral top note from the Sidra, and a wine-like acidity that’s structural rather than sour. Lighter body than the fermentation notes lead you to expect. It sits somewhere between the Gesha and the Aricha on our roster: more exotic than the classic washed lots, cleaner than the carbonic ones.

How we roast it

Light-medium, similar to how we handle the Aricha, but with slightly more care through the drying phase because anaerobic lots tend to arrive at higher moisture content. Development is short. The fermentation aromatics are the point and heat removes them.

Brewing it

Pour-over, at a slightly lower temperature than the washed Ethiopians, around 92 °C. Anaerobic coffees extract their fermentation notes readily, and too much heat tips passionfruit toward something closer to solvent.