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Coffee variety
Sidra Coffee Beans
Sidra is a Bourbon-Typica cross that came out of Ecuador and is now grown in small quantities across the northern Andes. It is bought for aromatics — jasmine, bergamot, citrus over a light, tea-like body — and it is one of the few varieties that can carry a whole cup on smell alone.
What Sidra tastes like
Light in body for a coffee grown this high, with a clarity that reads closer to a good tea than to a classic Latin American cup. The aromatics arrive before the flavour does: floral at the top, citrus underneath, and a sweetness that stays gentle rather than turning syrupy. It rewards attention and punishes a rushed brew, which is a fair description of most varieties people are willing to pay a premium for.
The two Sidras we carry
Finca Terrazas del Pisque in Pichincha, Ecuador, at 2,100 masl — the highest lot in our catalogue — washed, which is the processing choice that lets a variety like this speak plainly. And El Diviso in Pitalito, Huila, Colombia, at 1,850 masl, anaerobic washed, which is the opposite bet: a sealed fermentation layered over a delicate variety. Same variety, 250 metres apart, processed at two ends of the range. If you want to taste what processing actually does, buying both is the clearest experiment on this site.
Why it is rare
Sidra yields poorly and is susceptible to disease, so it occupies land a producer could plant with something safer and more productive. It survives on the specialty market being willing to pay for what it does in the cup. That is also why it appears in small lots and disappears between harvests rather than sitting on a shelf year-round.