We left Quito at four in the morning, headlights cutting through fog so thick it felt like driving inside a cloud. By the time we crested the ridge, the sun was just starting to color the eastern sky and the coffee plants below us were still glassy with dew.
At 1,900 meters, the air does something to coffee. It slows everything down — cherries ripen unevenly, sugars concentrate, acidity gets that bright, almost grapefruit edge that we chase from one farm to the next. The farmers here have been doing this for three generations. They know each tree the way some people know songs.
We spent the morning picking with Don Marco's family, then sat on overturned crates drinking the last of yesterday's roast from tin cups. Nobody talked much. The fog rolled back in by ten and we drove down the mountain with the back of the trailer full of parchment, smelling like wet earth and citrus and woodsmoke.
This is the lot that becomes our Pichincha Reserve. Every cup of it carries a piece of that morning.
