It's still dark when we leave Loja. The drive to Masanamaca takes about an hour, and we make it almost in silence, with thermoses of coffee, watching the sky begin to lighten over the mountains. The farm isn't just around the corner, and that journey is part of the ritual.
We want to take you through a real day at VINKA. Not the perfect day for Instagram, but the true one: dirt under our nails, measurements to record, and the honest work of cultivating the treasure.
Arriving With the Mist
When we arrive, the mist still wraps around the coffee plants. This is still our favorite part of the day. There's something in the stillness, in the way the dawn light filters through the trees at the foot of Podocarpus National Park, that reminds us why we do this.
The first thing is to walk among the plants and look. We search for signs the data doesn't always capture: a change in the color of a leaf, the presence of certain insects, the way the moisture feels in the air.
Neither of us comes from a coffee family. Carlos's maternal grandfather was a farmer — he grew tobacco and sugarcane — and after him, no generation returned to the land. In a way, with VINKA we return to planting what had gone unplanted for years; this time with a notebook in one hand and, sometimes, a meter in the other. Tradition and science walking together through the coffee.
Selective Harvest
Here there isn't a single harvest a year. We have peaks in March, June, and December, so for much of the year we're watching the exact moment of each plant.
When the season comes, harvest begins early and is entirely manual and selective. We pick only cherries at their optimal ripeness: bright red, firm but not hard. That means passing through the same plants several times over the season. It's more work, yes. But it's the difference between good coffee and exceptional coffee.
What many don't realize: an experienced hand can tell the difference between the cherries that are ready today and the ones that need two more days. That level of precision, plant by plant, is something no machine can replace.
To the Laboratory
The harvested cherries arrive at the processing area. This is where the farm becomes a laboratory.
First, the flotation: we submerge the cherries in water to separate the floaters — the empty or damaged cherries, less dense — and keep only the ones that sink. Then comes hand-sorting at the table.
What decides whether a cherry enters a lot isn't a single number, but three things: color, degree of ripeness, and uniformity. That trio is our main criterion at reception.
We use Brix as a complementary tool, in two ways. In the cherry, to fine-tune the point of ripeness. And in the sap of the leaves, to read the vigor and health of the plant itself. It isn't a pass-or-fail requirement; it's one more way of understanding what the plant and the fruit are telling us.
Everything is logged in our database: date, lot, measurements, ambient temperature, relative humidity. Over the years, that data lets us see patterns, anticipate behaviors, and refine our processes.
Monitoring the Fermentations
Throughout the harvest season, we take different paths to process and ferment our coffees. After deciding on whole-cherry or pulped coffees, we opt for open-environment, spontaneous, or controlled fermentations.
The monitoring process is less involved than people imagine. Throughout the day, we check each fermentation using our senses — aroma reveals a lot — and measure the pH about three times. We don't chase the clock; the cutoff point is determined by the pH level, not the number of hours. In a Sidra with cold submerged fermentation, for example, we aim to slowly bring the pH down to around 4.0 before moving the coffee cherries to the drying stage..
Much of a coffee's character is defined during fermentation, which is why we approach it calmly.
A Pause on the Farm
At midday we slow down. The farm has corners we truly love: the lookout, with its open view of the mountains, and the river that crosses it, its water remarkably clean. These are our places to breathe and to see the land again with fresh eyes.
The Afternoon: Closing the Cycle
In the afternoon, we check the drying canopy and monitor the moisture levels of the coffee lots drying there. We turn the beans so they dry evenly and ensure that no layer stays wetter than another. We also feel each lot by hand to check how it is coming along, letting the coffee dry at its own pace. If we've learned anything in these last three years, it's that a good drying process is key to a quality cup, and that the most important thing is for the moisture to decrease slowly.
Each Day, a Record
Before heading back to Loja, we update the records. How many kilos were harvested, what state the fermentations are in, what we observed in the field, the plan for tomorrow.
We also look back. What was the weather like on this date last year? What were we harvesting? What did we learn? The memory of the farm is, in itself, a treasure.
The End of the Day
We always close with a cup of our own coffee. A lot processed months earlier, with its notes of forest berries, its bright acidity, and a sweetness that lingers. And then we think: this is the treasure. Not only the coffee, but everything it represents — the land that produced it, the hands that harvested it, the knowledge that refined it, and the community that makes it possible.
Tomorrow we'll leave Loja again before dawn and do it all over. Because the real treasure isn't found once. It's cultivated every day.
Come See It for Yourself
These words don't do it justice. To truly understand what we do at VINKA, you have to be here: to smell the earth after the rain, to see the morning mist, to step out onto the lookout, and to taste the coffee at its origin.
We're part of the Coffee Route of Ecuador. Our door is open.
The treasure awaits.