Side by side comparison

Peru and Ecuador

Fields follow the learning level door you picked on the home page. Empty catalog fields stay honest and empty.

First originSecond origin

Sensory Contrast at a Glance

Sweetness

Peru●●●

Ecuador●●●●

Sparkle & Acidity

Peru●●●

Ecuador●●●

Body & Weight

Peru●●

Ecuador●●●

Sensory Radar Overlay

Peru
Ecuador

Relative to this catalog, not SCA scores.

Metric	Peru	Ecuador
Summary	Clean and refreshing: soft florals and delicate fruit. A quiet cup if washed Ethiopias feel too loud.	Sweet and medium-bodied, with stone fruit and chocolate. Some heirloom lots (Sidra) add rose, honey, and apricot.
Tasting notes	jasmine tea, green apple, cane sugar, almond, soft citrus	honey, apricot, rose, cocoa nib, cane sugar
Who grows it	Smallholder cooperatives in Cajamarca, Amazonas, Cusco, and neighboring regions.	Family farms and small mills in Loja and the volcanic sierra.
Producers in detail	CENFROCAFE, CECANOR, and similar cooperatives made Peruvian smallholders visible to specialty buyers. A bag may name a cooperative, a district, or a women’s producer group. Traceability is often at association level rather than a single finca - still a real producer story, just a collective one.	Look for a finca name in Loja or a mill that separates Sidra from Typica. Producers here often process on-site (honey beds under plastic) rather than delivering to a giant cooperative. That mill-level control is why process varies bag to bag - always read washed vs honey.
Terroir	Eastern Andean slopes facing Amazon humidity, or drier inter-Andean valleys. High farms in Cajamarca and Cusco give florals; jungle-edge San Martín lots can taste greener if altitude is lower. Shop for a highland region name.	Andes plus equator: intense sun, cool nights, and volcanoes (Cotopaxi is the postcard). Loja in the south is drier and known for sweetness; Pichincha nearer Quito is greener. Both are high enough for floral genetics to ripen slowly.
Process	Often washed.	Washed or honey - read the bag.
Process in detail	Washed Peruvian lots are pulped and fermented at small mills, then dried on raised beds or tarps. The profile is clean, floral, and lightly fruity rather than heavy or earthy - closer to a quiet Colombia than to Sumatra. Honey and natural experiments exist in Cajamarca and Cusco but are still the minority on export bags.	Loja and Pichincha mills wash for clarity or leave mucilage for honey lots that taste like apricot nectar. Sidra and Typica Mejorada are often honey-processed because the genetics already run floral; the mucilage amplifies that without turning the cup into a natural jam. Experimental anaerobic appears on competition menus, not on every grocery bag.
Brew tag	Filter	Filter
Bag cue	Look for Peru, washed, floral or clean. Cajamarca or Cusco if a region is listed.	Look for Ecuador, Loja or Sidra, honeyed stone fruit.
Cafe order	A washed Peru, Cajamarca or Cusco if you have it - the quiet floral one, black, not heavy milk.	An Ecuador, Loja or Sidra if you have it, light roast, black - honeyed stone fruit.
Milk	Black	Black, Dairy
Species	arabica	arabica
Altitude (light)	High Andes - often 1,200–2,000m	High-grown valleys - about 1,200–2,000m
Altitude (detail)	Cajamarca, Amazonas, and Cusco specialty lots commonly grow 1,400–2,000m. That altitude supplies the soft floral lift; it is not as extreme as Nariño’s highest farms, which is why Peru stays gentle.	Specialty lots from Loja, Vilcabamba, and the slopes around Quito commonly sit 1,200–2,000m. Equatorial sun plus altitude gives dense seeds and a stone-fruit sweetness that is less citrus than Kenya and less jasmine than washed Yirgacheffe.
Varieties	Typica, Caturra, Bourbon, Catimor (when labeled)	Sidra, Typica Mejorada, Typica (when labeled)
Harvest	Often April–September in the north; timing shifts with valley and altitude.	Varies by slope; many highland lots are picked in the middle of the calendar year.
Brew rec	Pour-over or AeroPress, light-medium roast. Do not bury it in dark roast or heavy milk.	Pour-over, light roast, 1:16. Honey Sidra can handle a slightly coarser grind so florals do not turn perfume-bitter.