🇪🇨 Ecuador

Ecuador's arabica grows in improbably high Andean valleys — Pichincha and Imbabura in the north, Loja and Zamora-Chinchipe in the far south — where farms at 1,500 to 2,200 metres ripen cherry slowly into dense, elegant cups. Costs are high and volumes tiny, so the country skipped the commodity race and went straight for quality: refined Typica, bright Caturra, and its own gift to the specialty world, the perfumed Sidra variety. Expect florals, stone fruit and cane-sugar sweetness with washed-process polish.