Ecuador

Hacienda La Papaya Oak Barrel

Oak Barrel Typica

Juan Peña’s Typica, fermented in oak barrels to create a wild and rich expression, driven by sweet dried fruit

We were fortunate enough to visit Juan for the first time in November 2021.

  • Producer
    Juan Peña
  • Coffee expression
    A fruity & wild coffee
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$30.00

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Oak Barrel

This lot was produced exclusively for us, with an extra dose of fresh coffee fruit added to the fermentation.

We’re excited to continue our collaboration with Juan Peña, owner of Hacienda La Papaya and Cafexporto. Since meeting in Aarhus in 2015, we have purchased many small experimental lots, continuing a conversation through high quality coffee. Over the past two years, Juan has expanded his work, exporting more Hacienda La Papaya coffee to Europe together with us, and starting the CafExporto project, working with farms across Ecuador. We are more than excited to expand our collaboration with Juan, and to share his excellent work with a wider audience. We were able to visit Juan and his team in November 2021, both at the Hacienda and at CafExporto’s base in the nearby city of Cuenca, towards the very end of harvest.

Hacienda La Papaya

Hacienda La Papaya is located just outside the town of Saraguro, in the Loja region of Southern Ecuador. The Hacienda has been in Juan’s family since the end of colonial rule, and is a place that holds great importance for the whole family, having spent their summers there since they were children. Juan began to experiment with coffee here in 2010, and moved to work in coffee full time in 2014 after his rose crop was wiped out by a violent storm in Cuenca. Over the intervening years he has thrown himself into the pursuit of high quality coffee, with a meticulous and scientific approach. This approach, shaped by Juan’s experience in roses and his training as an agricultural engineer, has led to an astronomic rise to high quality and international recognition, over just 7 years. His obsessive experimentation and need for scientific evidence is a cornerstone of his work at each stage, from carefully applied and monitored fertilisation, constant measurement of brix and cherry weight during harvest, innovation in careful fermentation, to the exacting drying process. Juan’s work in each of these fields is truly some of the most meticulous and effective we have seen in our years of travelling for coffee, and we left the Hacienda in awe.

Oak Barrel Typica

This hard work and innovation is also clear when tasting Juan’s coffees; top-quality micro-lots, with wildly varying flavour profiles and expressions. Juan mainly grows Typica ‘Mejorado’, the enhanced version of the varietal, first grown on Nestle’s experimental farms in the north of Ecuador. Juan puts much of his success down to the combination of high yield and incredible cup quality that these Mejorado plants provide. The Hacienda is also home to plots of Mejorado’s Nestle sibling Sidra, and a very limited amount of Geisha, while a small plot of Pacamara near the top of the farm is awaiting its first big harvest. This lot is from Juan’s Typica Mejorado trees, fermented in oak barrels for 5 days. These oak barrels were previously used to age Ecuadorean rum for over 20 years, so have a rich microbiota. This means that the coffee fermentation is pushed in a rather different direction than if it was dominated by the coffee’s native microbiota, creating a very different expression of Juan’s Typica.

For this lot, processed specifically for us, Juan also added an extra dose of coffee pulp to the tank, freshly removed from a lot of washed Typica. This adds fuel for the fermentation, leading to extra complexity, but without allowing the fermentation to move on to oxidise ethanol and create acetic acid. These acetic flavours often lead to taints in the cup, so avoiding these allows Juan to create incredible complexity while maintaining a clean expression. The expression is deeper, richer and more complex; the acidity is a little lower, with fresh fruit character softening into rich dried fruit.

Technical Data

  • Producer

    Juan Peña
  • Region

    Loja
  • Altitude

    2000 masl
  • Varietal

    Typica
  • Process

    Oak Barrel
  • Harvest

    August 2022

Anaerobic Process

The coffee is first pulped mechanically, removing most of the fruit, as with a white honey process. The parchment coffee and almost gel-like mucilage are then packed tightly into a small fermentation tank, and sealed with almost no oxygen present. As the fermentation starts to occur, carbon dioxide is produced, creating a completely anaerobic environment, and also high pressure within the tank. This affects coffee flavour in two ways. 

An anaerobic environment favours a very different set of fermenting bacteria and yeast, leading to a dominant lacto-fermentation. The pressure also forces coffee juices into the seed itself, adding more fermentable sugars to continue the process. The coffee is then dried with the mucilage still attached, as with a honey processed coffee. All of this adds layers of complexity to the final cup.


Opening Hours

East Village Bakery - NYC

152 2nd Ave

10003 New York

United States

Opening Hours:

Mon - Fri: 7:00 - 18:00

Sat - Sun: 8:00 - 18:00

Soho - NYC

284 Lafayette St

10012 New York

United States

Opening Hours:

Mon - Fri: 7:00 - 18:00

Sat - Sun: 8:00 - 18:00

Graven - Aarhus

Graven 20

8000 Aarhus C

Denmark

Opening Hours:

Mon - Sat: 8:00 - 18:00

Sun: 9:00 - 17:00

Borggade Bakery - Aarhus

Borggade 4F

8000 Aarhus C

Denmark

Opening Hours:

Mon - Sun: 7:00 - 17:00

Møntergade - Copenhagen

Møntergade 3A

1116 Copenhagen K

Denmark

Opening Hours:

Mon - Fri: 8:00 - 18:00

Sat - Sun: 9:00 - 17:00

Roastery - Copenhagen

Marguerite Vibys Plads 8

2000 Frederiksberg

Denmark

Opening Hours:

Mon - Fri: 8:00 - 17:00

Sat - Sun: Closed

Talad Noi - Bangkok

813 Charoen Krung Rd, Talat Noi, Samphanthawong

10100 Bangkok

Thailand

Opening Hours:

Mon - Fri: 8:00 - 17:00

Sat - Sun: 8:00 - 17:00

Ari - Bangkok

304 Phahonyothin Road, Samsen Nai, Phaya Thai

10400 Bangkok

Thailand

Opening Hours:

Mon - Fri: 08:00 - 17:00

Sat - Sun: 08:00 - 17:00

Muscat - Oman

Al Qurum Complex

113 Muscat

Oman

Opening Hours:

Mon - Sat: 07:00 - 21:00

Sun: Closed

152 2nd Ave

10003 New York

United States

Opening Hours:

Mon - Fri: 7:00 - 18:00

Sat - Sun: 8:00 - 18:00

284 Lafayette St

10012 New York

United States

Opening Hours:

Mon - Fri: 7:00 - 18:00

Sat - Sun: 8:00 - 18:00

Graven 20

8000 Aarhus C

Denmark

Opening Hours:

Mon - Sat: 8:00 - 18:00

Sun: 9:00 - 17:00

Borggade 4F

8000 Aarhus C

Denmark

Opening Hours:

Mon - Sun: 7:00 - 17:00

Møntergade 3A

1116 Copenhagen K

Denmark

Opening Hours:

Mon - Fri: 8:00 - 18:00

Sat - Sun: 9:00 - 17:00

Marguerite Vibys Plads 8

2000 Frederiksberg

Denmark

Opening Hours:

Mon - Fri: 8:00 - 17:00

Sat - Sun: Closed

813 Charoen Krung Rd, Talat Noi, Samphanthawong

10100 Bangkok

Thailand

Opening Hours:

Mon - Fri: 8:00 - 17:00

Sat - Sun: 8:00 - 17:00

304 Phahonyothin Road, Samsen Nai, Phaya Thai

10400 Bangkok

Thailand

Opening Hours:

Mon - Fri: 08:00 - 17:00

Sat - Sun: 08:00 - 17:00

Al Qurum Complex

113 Muscat

Oman

Opening Hours:

Mon - Sat: 07:00 - 21:00

Sun: Closed

Contact

Webshop

Marguerite Vibys Pl. 1

2000 Frederiksberg

Denmark

Have a question?

Please write us in the chat.

Wholesale

Marguerite Vibys Pl. 1

2000 Frederiksberg

Denmark

Have a question?

Please write us here

Marguerite Vibys Pl. 1

2000 Frederiksberg

Denmark

Have a question?

Please write us in the chat.

Marguerite Vibys Pl. 1

2000 Frederiksberg

Denmark

Have a question?

Please write us here