Juan Pena's operation at Hacienda La Papaya is one of notoriety and excellence. Starting out as a rose farmer, Juan Pena began planting coffee trees and diversifying his crops after a particularly disastrous harvest. Now, 16 years after the first coffee trees were planted at La Papaya, Juan has won many awards, and is a familiar name in Barista Competitions around the world. Growing mostly Mejorado, Sidra, and Gesha between 1900-2100masl at his farm in Saraguro, the systems in place at La Papaya are highly organized and carefully engineered to pursue consistently high quality at scale. A state of the art drip irrigation system runs across all 28 acres, with a seedling nursery constantly iterating upon the current varietals and ensuring quality year over year. On top of this, there are automated soil management sensors that detect levels of different nutrients in each plot. An excellently clean representation of the Mejorado varietal with very minimal intervention. Depulped, washed with clean water, fermented underwater for 15 hours, then dried on raised beds. Meticulous sorting and excellent drying make for an easy to work with coffee, and an excellent cup. While hot, the cup starts off with a lovely medley of mixed berries, acai, blackberry, and mulberry all swirl around with an intensely fresh and clean sweetness. In the centerline, notes of white tea, vanilla ice cream, and cashew butter carry the body along just enough to prop up a beautifully delicate floral bouquet. Lavender, lilac and jasmine are all singing as the cup cools, with a long lingering softness of bergamot and pine. Source: Directly purchased from Hacienda La Papaya