Victor Dota

About This Coffee

This is the first exportable harvest from new producer Victor Dota and one of the best representations of Mejorado from Ecuador we tasted this year. This lot comes from a tiny .5-hectare (1.2-acre) farm, and we are excited to see it mature. In the cup we find Key lime, floral botanicals, and ripe stone fruit. Sourcing coffee in Ecuador remains remarkably challenging. Fewer farmers are choosing to grow coffee, and prices continue to rise year after year. Despite these obstacles, coffees from this region remain some of our absolute favorites. Victor Dota is a first-generation coffee producer, and this year marks the first exportable harvest from his farm. His small garden, spanning just 0.5 hectares (~1.2 acres), consists of only 400 Mejorado plants. Mejorado is a very unique variety mainly grown in Ecuador. Though it is colloquially known as Typica Mejorado, we now know — thanks to genetic testing by World Coffee Reseach — that it is actually a Bourbon variety cross-pollinated with an Ethiopian Landrace variety.