Introduction to Hasunda Coffee Garden in Ecuador

In 1535, Frey Thomas de Belanga of Spain and others stumbled upon the Galapagos Islands. Thomas was born in 1487 on the Douro River in the province of Soria, Spain, and was the fourth bishop of Panama at that time. He was ordered to go to Peru. When his ship set sail from Panama on February 23, under the impact of a strong current, they were taken to the unknown sea, and on March 10, they discovered a small island in the Galapagos Islands. At that time, there were only two days of fresh water left on the ship, and the sailors landed in lifeboats and found a large number of seals, sea turtles, giant tortoises that could carry people, and iguanas that looked like venomous snakes, but they did not find fresh water, so they sailed to another larger island more than 20 kilometers away. As there was still no wind, it took them several days to get there, and the water ran out quickly and they had to starve, including the horses on the boat without grass.

When Thomas and the crew landed on the island, they were frantically looking for water and were so thirsty that they squeezed juice from the fat leaves of the cactus to drink. At last a source of water was found in a rocky gully. Thomas attributed it to the gift of God, because it was good Friday, and they had piously celebrated mass before they set out in search of water. But Thomas will never know that the island they landed on is the only island in the Galapagos archipelago that has plenty of fresh water, today's St. Cristobal Island (Saint Cristobal).

St. Cristobal is a larger island in the Galapagos archipelago. At 410m above sea level, there is a small lake called El.Junco, which forms streams along the rocks and volcanic rocks on the southern slope of the island. Mineral-rich fresh water moistens the land of St. Cristobal, keeping the soil moist and fertile. It provides the most rare conditions for the growth of coffee here.

In 1875, 340 years after Frey Thomas de Belanga discovered the island, an indigenous man named Corvus came to St. Cristobal, where he established the Hasunda Coffee Garden and planted about 100 hectares of Arabian bourbon coffee trees. Because the plantation is located between 140m and 275m above sea level and the climate is equivalent to that of inland 915m ~ 1830 m, the unique geographical conditions are very suitable for the growth of high acidity extra hard coffee beans (SHB), so this kind of high-quality coffee has settled down here.