Some coffees come and go, while others earn a permanent place in our memories. Finca Angamaza is one of those coffees.

Now returning for the third year in a row, this Ecuadorian coffee has become a true staff favorite and one of the coffees we look forward to most each season.

The first time someone explained coffee fermentation to me, I nodded politely in the way people do when they absolutely do not understand what’s happening but would still like to appear employable in a specialty coffee setting.

A naturally processed coffee is one of those things that sounds a little intimidating until you realize it’s actually pretty simple. It’s not flavored coffee, and it’s not some overly technical coffee-world secret. It’s just a different way of handling the coffee cherry after it’s picked, and it has a huge impact on how the coffee tastes in your cup.

The cup you drank this morning had a lineage. It came from a specific plant, with a genetic history, grown at an elevation, selected by the farmer for particular reasons. And almost none of that appears on the label.

The varietal of a given coffee is an entrance into the story of that lineage.