Cloud forest

Pepe Jijón's Finca Soledad is a biodynamic, organic farm, 4 hectares of coffee within 120 hectares of cloud forest in Ecuador's Intag Valley. Production is deliberately small, with just three varieties grown: Sidra, Gesha, and Mejorado. The farm also functions as a community project, employing single mothers from the local area. Biodiversity here is exceptional, and the cloud forest setting shapes everything from soil health to microclimate.

Sidra

The variety known as Sidra in Ecuador is, as current understanding goes, an Ethiopian Landrace, confirmed through DNA testing, though still the subject of ongoing research and debate. Ethiopia holds the greatest coffee genetic diversity in the world, with over 60 distinct confirmed varieties, and how these landrace genetics have spread and adapted across the globe remains an open question. What's clear is that Sidra produces something genuinely distinctive, and at Finca Soledad, with the care and conditions Pepe puts into the farm, it has the space to show it.