Ecuador

Ecuador has everything it takes to grow great coffee. Positioned between Colombia and Peru, the interior mountain ranges have plenty of altitude, weather patterns, and ideal soil for quality coffee production.: Coffee has a long history in Ecuador: it was introduced in the early 19th century and became its main export in the early 20th century. But coffee from Ecuador has never been included in the list of Specialty Coffee origins, mostly because of poor harvesting and processing practices. As other Ecuadorian exports (banana, oil, shrimp) exceeded coffee in export importance, hope that the quality of the coffee would improved became less. They managed to continue to ship low grade arabica and robusta coffees, finding a market among the institutional and commercial roasters of the U.S. and Europe who are more concerned with price than cup quality. But coffee employed about 15% of the rural population

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