🍎Ecuador 🍎

We are so pleased to announce that Gladys is back at Radical Roasters with a new crop of her renowned washed Bourbon coffee, this time boasting a creamy body with tasting notes of sweet Red Apple, delicate Vanilla and a Pecan accented finish.

Grown by: Gladys Erazo
Farm: Cutanapamba
Region: San Pedro de Vilcabamba, Loja, Ecuador
Process: Washed
Varietal: Bourbon

Gladys Erazo is an active member in the local association of coffee growers APECAEL. The active members of the association take part in producing their own organic fertilisers, some of which they sell locally when in surplus. Active members also get the benefits of consultancy by agro-engineers, coffee processing experts, accountants, etc.

Gladys’ farm is 1.8 hectares where most of it produces Bourbon and a small part of Typica. This farm produces around 600 kg of parchment per year. All coffee is washed.

Gladys’ main income source is not coffee but beekeeping! She has about a dozen beehives within the farm, but her main beekeeping site is a 2 hour trek up the mountains into the cloud forest. She keeps her bees there because of the diversity of flowers in the cloud forest, which she says give the honey a special flavour.

Cutanapamba has been producing coffee for 20 years, since Gladys was a young adult. This is a farm tucked in between steep hills, the whole plantation grows under the shadow of various species of trees and bordered by a river that comes straight from Podocarpus National park.

The coffee is selected through flotation, then it is pulped and placed in fermentation tanks for 18 hours. The coffee is then fully washed and placed in raised African drying beds.