Ecuador - Geisha Wave Washed, Finca Soledad

Finca Soledad is the patriotic project of Seven Summiteer and 1st generation specialty coffee producer Jose Ignacio “Pepe” Jijon.

In the early 2000s, Pepe solo climbed the highest peak in each of the seven continents — conquering Mount Everest as the 7th summit — as a salute to mother nature and a tribute to his homeland, Ecuador. He is esteemed as the first South American to have done so.

Through that extreme, athletic feat, Pepe aimed to inspire the youth to make their country proud through worthwhile pursuits that show reverence for nature and showcase the tenacity of the human spirit. He aspires to enduringly achieve this same aim through Finca Soledad’s focus on careful cultivation and mindful processing only of rare varieties.

These days, and for the last 15 years, he’s been working toward the same aim through the famed Finca Soledad in the remote Intag Valley of the northerly Imbabura province. It’s his family’s artisanal farm where all intentions and energies focus on producing the purest possible expressions of terroir and rare coffee varieties, Typica Mejorado and Sidra, both indigenous to Ecuador, and suitably acclimatized Geisha — in ways most respectful of the environment and rewarding for the people involved in cultivating and processing.

In the world of coffee, he is most admired for his humility, vision, and tenacity, having sought the counsel of the most seasoned producers and persisting in coffee farming amid the overlapping socio-economic challenges in the country's agricultural sector.

Through Finca Soledad, with its focus on artisanal production of only rare varieties — Geisha, Sidra, and Typica Mejorado — mindfully processed into the purest possible expressions of terroir and variety, in Pepe’s own words, “irreplicable expressions of time and space.”

In receiving Sprudge Magazine’s 2023 Notable Coffee Producer Sprudgie Award, he highlighted how coffee “has been harder than climbing than Mount Everest.

Geisha, acclimatized to Ecuador’s forested highland terroirs and processed with intention, is a yearly mainstay among the Cup of Excellence and Taza Dorada’s highest scorers, like Typica Mejorada and Sidra. Pepe Jijon’s Geisha is inspired by masterworks of Best of Panama producers whom he connected with at global coffee events and learned from first-hand when he toured their estates in 2021. 1st Place at the Malaysia 2023 National Barista Championship was won with a Finca Soledad Wave Washed Geisha.

Pepe Jijon’s philosophical approach to coffee cultivation and processing emanates from his deeply personal respect for and understanding of the silent language of nature.

These have led him to realize that the most exquisite, terroir-driven attributes of his farm’s rare varieties are best revealed by gently modulating post-harvest processing variables, such as temperature, time, and pressure, amid the existing weather conditions.

The resultant Wave Philosophy underpinning Finca Soledad’s protocols introduce the least amount of necessary strain to the living embryo within each coffee bean through subtle iterations in the fermentation and drying stages.

Admirably, Pepe continues to hone Finca Soledad’s techniques by integrating his studies as a certified Q Processing Professional, first-hand learning from Best of Panama producers, ongoing thoughtful experimentation, and feedback from his trusted network of world-class roasters.

For this lot, only 22 Brix Geisha cherries were carefully hand-harvested. Then, to delicately usher the embryo of each cherry into a conducive state for developing clear, sweet, and complex flavors — emblematic of Finca Soledad — cleaning and sorting were done by hand and without water. A dual-phased fermentation ensued, involving a 24-hour aerobic or open tank stage, de-pulping, 24-hour mucilage fermentation in grain pro, followed by a full wash and finally 30 days of slow drying in a dark room.