Ecuador Farmer’s Collection launches first online auction

Qima Coffee, in partnership with the Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE), announced the first edition of the Ecuador Farmer’s Collection, an online specialty coffee auction taking place on 26 March.

The Ecuador Farmer’s Collection is designed as a long-term platform for Ecuadorian coffee, built on rigorous evaluation, transparency and a sustained commitment to origin. It connects exceptional smallholder coffees with the global specialty market through an open, quality-led auction format – applying the same core principles that shaped Best of Yemen, adapted to Ecuador’s distinct landscapes, varieties, and production systems.

“Best of Yemen proved that the outcome for smallholder farmers can be changed,” said Faris Sheibani, CEO of Qima Coffee. “In origins like Yemen, exceptional coffee is often produced in tiny volumes, and the usual trade routes don’t reward it properly. Ecuador has that same truth at farm level: families producing remarkable coffees in small volumes, often without a reliable route to value. This auction is a commitment to put those coffees in front of the world, to let quality lead, and to connect smallholders to serious buyers.”

Ecuador’s potential as a specialty origin is rooted in both ecology and people. Along the Andes, multiple ecosystems converge within short distances—tropical dry forests, humid mountain forests, Andean cloud forests, Amazonian transition zones, and inter-Andean valleys—creating sharp variations in altitude, temperature, and humidity. The result is an unusually broad set of growing environments capable of producing coffees with high complexity and a clear sense of place. This first edition features producers from key regions including Loja, Zamora Chinchipe, Pichincha, and Ibarra, spanning northern, central, and southern Ecuador.

Yet despite this promise, Ecuador’s coffee sector has struggled to thrive at scale. Infrastructure remains limited, logistics are costly, and competing rural livelihoods—corn, livestock, and increasingly gold mining—offer more predictable returns. For many smallholders, coffee has often been treated as a secondary crop, even where quality was high, because the route to consistent value has been uncertain.

Qima Coffee has been active in Ecuador since 2021, working directly with smallholder producers across multiple regions, in coordination with national institutions and local partners, with a focus on post-harvest development, genetic potential, and market access.

“This first edition reflects Ecuador —diverse, ambitious, and full of producers doing meticulous work on a small scale,” said Kathia Lopez, auction manager for ACE. “Having worked in Ecuador, I know how much potential is already in these lots. The auction gives buyers clarity and confidence, and it gives producers something equally important: visibility, recognition, and a stronger link between what they do on the farm and how the world values it.”

The national evaluation stage is now complete, and selected coffees will move to an international jury for final assessment ahead of the auction. For this first edition, the Ecuador Farmer’s Collection has assembled one of the largest international juries for any auction programme, bringing together cuppers from 19 countries across Europe, the Middle East, North America, and East Asia. Participating organisations include Kaffebrenneriet (Norway), George Howell Coffee (USA), Blue Bottle Coffee (USA), Sulalat (Saudi Arabia), Sarutahiko Coffee (Japan), Momos Coffee (South Korea), and Fisher (China)—ensuring these coffees are assessed with the attention, breadth, and market insight they merit.

The auction represents a tangible opportunity for Ecuadorian producers to connect directly with international buyers through Qima Coffee’s auction platform. Beyond sales, the objective is to position Ecuador’s coffees—and the stories, territories, and production visions behind them—in the world’s most demanding specialty markets, year after year, building a pathway for smallholders to develop sustainable, profitable specialty coffee enterprises connected to the global market.

The Ecuador Farmer’s Collection online auction takes place on 26 March.