No. 80 | Ecuador - Cruz Loma

Behind every coffee crop is a farm with a family and a story. This is Grace’s.

Finca Cruz Loma received its name when there were no paved roads to let you access the farm in Ecuador. Two routes, taken only by foot or hoof, intersected across the farmland, creating a cross that could be seen for miles. Thus, it was dubbed Cruz Loma or “cross hill.” Three generations of the Morales family have run the farm since its inception, each with their own contributions to the business. A significant time after its start, the farm continued to be without a suitable road system, making it difficult to transport the new machinery that the second generation wanted to start implementing in the processing system. This didn’t stop progress from being made, though. After bringing in each machine, piece by piece, and reassembling them on the property, Finca Cruz Loma was the first farm in the area to use machinery to do what was once done only by hand.

Coffee is important to the Morales family but takes up less than 2% of their crops; the rest of their 350-hectare farm is dedicated to many other fruits and vegetables. The neighboring plants also play a part in the coffee cultivation. Cedar and plantain trees provide natural shade for the coffee and add to the terroir, the unique characteristic given to the coffee based on the particular environment it was grown. These coffee beans are a Sidra varietal, an up-and-coming hybrid that is believed to originate from Ecuador. Sidra cherries tend to be larger and rounder than other types in their varietal family, and the seeds inside are long and thin, similar to Geisha.

The third and current generation to run the farm is led by Grace Morales Flores. Grace takes a special interest in the processes used on the farm, striving to cultivate new and different flavor profiles. This coffee crop is a washed process resulting in notes of peach, strawberry, orange, and rose.