Los Ríos
A cacao growing region in Ecuador.
A province in Ecuador's coastal lowlands within the Guayas river basin, historically central to the arriba trade. The name arriba — 'upriver' — refers to cacao collected from this river system and floated down to Guayaquil, which is where the designation came from in the first place.
Does the name carry a designation?
Arriba is a trade designation with legal standing in Ecuador.
It has commercial standing and no genetic definition. Material sold as arriba may be Nacional, clonal or a blend.
- Country
- Ecuador
- Flavour families
- floral, nutty
Terroir
Flat alluvial lowland along the river system, hot and humid, with a mixture of estate and smallholder production.
Flavour character
Genuine Nacional material from here is often associated with pronounced floral character over a soft, low-acid body.
A great deal of what is grown in the province today is clonal material rather than historical Nacional, and the two are not distinguished on most labels.
Other regions in Ecuador
Related
Part of
- EcuadorA province in Ecuador's coastal lowlands within the Guayas river basin, historically central to the arriba trade.
Varieties planted here
- NacionalDocumented as planted in this region, though plantings within a region are rarely uniform and material is frequently mixed. Los Ríos — A province in Ecuador's coastal lowlands within the Guayas river basin, historically central to the arriba trade.
- CCN-51Documented as planted in this region, though plantings within a region are rarely uniform and material is frequently mixed. Los Ríos — A province in Ecuador's coastal lowlands within the Guayas river basin, historically central to the arriba trade.
History and culture
- Cacao in EcuadorOne of the historic Arriba growing areas upriver of Guayaquil.
Sources
- ChocolateHQ editorial synthesis — ChocolateHQ(citation identity confirmed; passage not re-read)