What is Sidra coffee?
Sidra is Ecuador's signature specialty variety — a fragrant, complex cup with ties to the Bourbon/Typica families and possibly Ethiopian landrace lineage. It nearly disappeared before Ecuadorian producers revived it, and it now produces some of the world's most celebrated lots.
Sources show where the underlying information came from. They do not automatically make a claim correct, so disputed history, evolving science and uncertain claims should be labeled as such in the explanation itself.
Sidra's history is tied to a legacy experimental station in Ecuador's Pichincha region; when the station wound down, local farmers kept trees alive without fully knowing what they had. Genetic studies suggest relationships to the Bourbon and Typica families — and possibly Ethiopian landrace ancestry — but its exact story is still debated.
What's not debated is the cup: floral, creamy, red-fruited, tea-like — a profile that put Ecuadorian coffee on the specialty map and now appears in Colombia as well. Sidra is fragile (low disease resistance) and demanding, but the prices top lots earn justify the risk for producers who can manage it. Our Variety encyclopedia documents its full profile.
- ·World Coffee Research varieties catalog(No direct source link provided)
- ·Ecuadorian producer disclosures(No direct source link provided)