We Nitrogen Flush all of our coffee when bagging for an inert shelf stable environment by locking freshness inside for up to 6 weeks prior to opening
 
Producer:  Juañ Pena
Farm: Hacienda La Papaya
Region: San Lorenzo, Saraguro, Loja
Varietal: Typica
Process: Natural
Altitude: 2100 masl
 
The memory of first trying Juañ's coffee a couple of years ago sticks strongly in our mind. We were blown away by his coffee and we jumped on the chance to secure his coffee this year with a stunning Natural Typica lot to release on both espresso and filter.
 
Hacienda La Papaya is the farm and estate owned and operated by Juan Peña, who is perhaps Ecuador's most famous emerging specialty-coffee farmer. Juan is a multigeneration farmer, but he's relatively new to coffee: A former long-stem-rose producer, he started experimenting with coffee plants in about 2010, after disastrous weather wiped out his flower fields.
Turning his energy entirely to coffee, he has worked to develop as healthy, hardy, and horticulturally intentional a farm as possible, with a very well-nurtured plant nursery and a "garden of inputs" on the property. (The "inputs garden" is interesting and shows Juan's dedication to science and methodical experimentation: He has coffee trees planted several yards apart and labeled with the fertilizer inputs they're given, to track the impact of the nutrients on growth and cherry development.
 
Juan grows several varieties on this land and is actively engaged with processing experiments as well. His farming is meticulous, scientific, curious, and giving: He provides neighbors and farm workers space in his nursery, along with seedlings, so that they can develop plots of their own.