Progresso Mejorado Lactic Washed

The Progresso community sits within the Zumba canton of Zamora Chinchipe — a province defined by its position at the interface of Andean and Amazonian ecosystems. The Mayo-Chinchipe river, which gives the province its name, runs south through this landscape toward the Peruvian border, and the native forest cover that lines its banks and extends across the hillsides of the rural parishes is part of what makes this one of the most biodiverse coffee-growing environments in Ecuador. Farms here are interspersed with protected and semi-protected forest zones, and producers manage their plots within a landscape that has never been fully cleared.
At 1,600 masl, the Progresso zone sits at the upper-middle elevation band for Zamora Chinchipe — cool enough at night to slow cherry maturation, humid enough year-round that post-harvest decisions require care. Historically, coffee from this part of the province entered conventional markets through local intermediaries, with little traceability and no direct connection to specialty buyers. The shift toward technically guided processing — fermentation-controlled Washed lots, anaerobic and lactic approaches — represents a significant departure from how coffee has been produced in Zumba for most of its history.
This Typica Mejorado lot follows a Lactic Washed process: controlled fermentation designed to encourage specific microbial activity before washing and drying. Two lots from the Progresso operation appear in this competition. Where the ASD Natural is a slow, extended process, the Lactic Washed is a targeted one — ginger flower, passion fruit, and strawberry drawn forward through a process that works with the region's natural microbial richness.