Ecuador — Ana Maria Crespo Hacienda Pillcocaja Typica "Golden Waffle" (Honey)

Tastes Like — 🧇 Waffle • 🍪 Cookies • 🍁 Maple Syrup

DETAILS

• Producer: Ana Maria Crespo
• Farm: Hacienda Pillcocaja
• Region: Azuay, Ecuador
• Varietal: Typica
• Process: Honey (Low Intervention)
• Altitude: 1,650 masl
• Harvest: 2026
• Roast Profile: Espresso

INTRO
Golden Waffle has been coming back for the past four years, and for good reason. This Typica from Ecuador makes an easy-going espresso that's sweet but still very clean. Think waffles, maple syrup, and cookies. In the cup: waffle, cookies, and maple syrup.

THE PRODUCER
Ana Maria Crespo produces this lot at Hacienda Pillcocaja in Azuay, in the southern highlands of Ecuador. The Crespo family bought the property twelve years ago and built the operation around keeping everything close to the farm, with the wet mill just 800 metres away so cherries don't travel far before processing. This is the same variety and farm as the natural-processed Honey Dude, so the two lots make a nice side-by-side comparison of how processing shapes the cup.

THE PROCESS
This is a traditional honey process. Cherries are depulped before drying, with some of the sticky mucilage left around the seed, and the coffee dries with that layer still attached before the remaining dried material is removed. There are no additional fermentation stages or other processing steps, keeping the intervention low.

The mucilage left on during drying is the defining step. It's what gives this lot a cleaner, more caramel-like sweetness than its natural sibling, building the waffle and maple syrup character that define this cup.

THE CUP
Round and sweet but very clean — waffle and cookie sweetness lead, with a maple syrup depth throughout. Caramel-like and easy-going, equally good black or with milk.

Flavour Notes
🧇 Waffle 🍪 Cookies 🍁 Maple Syrup