Ecuador - Azuay / Loja - Community Lot | Natural

About the Coffee

Juan Peña founded CafExporto to source and process coffee from smallholder producers across Ecuador's Azuay and Loja provinces. This community lot draws from two specific areas: the Yunguilla Valley and the Chito Community, both sitting between 1,600 and 1,900 meters above sea level. Before purchasing any coffee, Peña's team cups and approves each lot at CafExporto's own laboratory, then sends it to their dry mill for processing, packaging, and further quality checks.

What holds this blend together is a shared set of standards called the Juan Peña certification. Every producer in the program follows the same protocols used at Peña's flagship Hacienda La Papaya, which means full traceability on every kilogram of coffee that leaves the farm. Producers get ongoing training throughout the growing season and receive consistent inputs to maintain quality from one harvest to the next. Once the coffee is harvested, it goes directly to CafExporto's facility for natural processing (where the whole fruit dries around the seed before milling, concentrating sugars and adding body to the cup) and final packaging.

The natural process here is handled after the community lots are cupped and selected, meaning only coffee that meets CafExporto's in-house standard makes it through. That step-by-step quality control, from farm to lab to mill, is what gives this lot its consistency across producers and harvest seasons.