Chito Community, Juan Peña, Ecuador | Washed FSC-8526

Chito Community Lot

Zamora Chinchipe, Southern Ecuador

In the far south of Ecuador, close to the Peruvian border and framed by the Mayo River, lies the rural sub-region of Chito. The town itself rests in a fertile valley, surrounded by small hillside farms rarely exceeding four acres (often less than a hectare). This is a remote part of the country, home largely to native Ecuadorian families, where Spanish is spoken alongside local dialects and agriculture remains a way of life.

For many years, producers here sold their coffee into Ecuador’s domestic market, often without traceability or opportunity to access higher-value speciality channels. During the 2021 harvest, Juan Peña and his team at CafExporto encountered the Chito community and were struck by the quality being produced: clean, floral profiles with structure and character shaped by healthy soils and careful farm management. Since then, they have worked closely with the community to develop a regional lot that reflects both the terroir and the potential of these producers.

Today, the Chito Community Lot represents the combined work of 55 smallholder farmers across the sub-region. Given the modest size of individual farms, single-farm export volumes would be impractical; instead, CafExporto selects the highest quality deliveries and builds a carefully curated community blend. While the lot draws contributions from across the group, the majority of the final volume comes from five key producers: Leodan Alverca, José Jiménez, Pablo Guerrero, Nazario Zurita and Luis Polinario.

Varietally, the region is historically rooted in Typica, with Catucaí and Caturra also widely grown. Through ongoing collaboration, CafExporto have supplied seedlings of Typica Mejorado, Sidra and Geisha, alongside agronomic guidance and fertilisation programmes aimed at improving both cup quality and farm sustainability.

All participating producers follow shared processing protocols established with Juan Peña. Only fully ripe cherries are selected during harvest and depulped the same day. The parchment is then fermented in tanks for 18–24 hours, with duration adjusted according to local climate conditions. After washing, the coffee is dried in the sun on patios for 9–18 days until stable.

The result is a transparent, community-driven lot that showcases the distinctive profile of Chito: refined florality, clarity in the cup, and a sweetness shaped by both terroir and collective effort.