El Sendero - Unroasted

What’s in a name? “El Sendero” seemed like the perfect name for our 2024 harvest because it translates to “The Path”—and this is meaningful for us both literally and figuratively!

It has now been 10 years since we began focusing on specialty coffee, and along the way, we have expanded our journey to include not only growing the coffee ourselves but also roasting it and selling it directly: from our farm to your cup. Because we are so involved in every step along the way, this path that our coffee travels is etched deep into our hearts.

Another way that “The Path” connects to our coffee is that it references an actual special trail at the farm. This trail (or path) has been preserved as a historical site at Siempre Verde Farm. To learn more about the saga of this path, keep reading. We are very proud to share El Sendero with you, and we hope you enjoy it!

A little-known fact (and one that still remains cloaked in mystery even to us) about our farm is its history as a key location during the struggle between the Caranqui (an indigenous Ecuadorian people group) and the Incas (a Peruvian people group) back in the 1400s and 1500s.

From what we know of the Caranqui culture, it was agrarian-based and peaceful. This makes sense to us considering the remoteness of our farm and all of the surrounding nature.

During the Inca invasion, while the Caranqui tried to defend their land, the Incas cleverly engineered roads through the rugged terrain of the Andes. These roads were collectively known as the Royal Road, and they were used by incredibly athletic Inca runners called chasquis (“chasqui” means “the one who gives and receives” in the Quechua language).

These chasquis were in charge of delivering messages throughout the territory using a relay system that allowed information to travel a distance of over 250 miles a day—all by foot, not by horse (horses did not arrive to South America until the Spanish conquistadors brought them).

One of these passages went through our farm, and we have a section of that road that we preserved and still use to this day. We call it “Camino Real” (Royal Road), and it is in a part of the farm named Ingapamba, which is a Quechua word that we are still trying to learn the exact meaning of!

This is just one element of the history our farm is steeped in. It was at another point owned by Jesuit priests, and then eventually, it was passed on to our family generations ago. We don’t know much about the period between Church possession of the property and when it came to belong to us.

One can only imagine the unknown past of our farm’s land from even before the time of the Inca/Caranqui conflict. It’s a fascinating and intriguing thought, and we’ll probably never know the farm’s full story.