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Fabian Lomas: Finca Las Cinco, Ecuador Finca Las Cinco may also be referred to "Perla Chiquita", the farm consists of 5 hectares, which is where it get's the "Las Cinco" name.
Fabian Lomas’ coffees have been an incredible champion on our cupping table, full of wild flavors that we have truly not experienced in coffee before.
In 2014, Cafe Imports sponsored the World Aeropress Championship by supplying the competion coffee....when faced with the decision on what coffee to use, Las Cinco was a no-brainer.
Read this blog post from Cafe Imports' Joe Marrocco about the roasting process for the Las Cinco compeition coffee.
Ecuador is a fascinating origin: it’s exotic in many ways but the quality is also there and the potential is huge. The cup profiles are very interesting with Typica, Caturra, and Bourbon dominating as far as varieties go. Ecuador exports only about 100 containers/year (40,000 lbs green coffee/container) of Washed Arabica. To put this into perspective:
Origin Country / Containers per Year (estimate)
Colombia / 32,000
Peru / 12,000
Bolivia / 300
Ecuador / 100
For many of the above reasons there are multiple buyers trying to buy the little good coffee there is. Many times this has led to failed attempts at consolidating enough coffee to export it. This year, Café Imports, was successful and will bring world-class Ecuador’s to the US Market including Taza Dorada #1, #4, and #9.
The south of Ecuador has small-holders with 1.5 hectares on average. While in the north we see larger farms.
Typical southern farms will be organic and extremely diverse with flowers, corn, cabbages, bananas, bees, cows, fish, fruits, and coffee. A big challenge these farmers are facing at the moment is leaf rust. This decimated plantations in Colombia bringing their production down 50% in a couple of years. The easiest solution for leaf-rust is intensive chemical applications but their respect for the environment makes them take the harder organic route. Also, plant nutrition in Ecuador is extremely low due to little fertilization. This affects cup quality and yields from parchment to green coffee.
Farms in the north are bigger, at 15 hectares or more. They use conventional fertilizers and are in better shape in general; the area is extremely lush and in very moist conditions with a nice warm summer creating good conditions for growing coffee. This area is extremely interesting, you will find: ancient indigenous tombs, a vineyard, and an experimental variety farm ran by NESPRESSO.
-Piero Cristiani
