Product Info

PRODUCER: Various

PROCESS:  Washed

REGION: La Coipa, San Ignacio, Cajamarca, Peru 

VARIETAL: Catuai, Caturra

ALTITUDE: 1750-1950 MASL

Tasting Notes: Dried apricots with mandarin brightness, jammy praline body and long lasting finish.

About The Coffee 

This lot comes producers around the La Coipa, San Ignacio district. Producers in these areas pick and process their coffee themselves and usually dry the coffee on a lined patio. Coffee is generally fermented there for 24 - 36 hours and the main varieties grow are caturra, catuai and typica.

The Region

Our importer has been working in Northern Peru for several years, buying specialty coffee from cooperatives and associations with whom they have built lasting relationships. Whilst a lot of the arrival quality they have seen in previous seasons has been good, they've struggled to impact upon that quality or make improvements in the supply chain as they would like. More importantly, the premiums they had been paying for quality rarely makes it directly back to producers, something they've had very little control over in previous years.

In Peru, like some other origins, coffee farmers are sensitive to market changes and often lack basic training and the incentive to produce higher qualities of coffee, as premiums often don’t materialise. For these reasons our importer decided they needed to change the way they buy coffee in Peru and work directly with producers, allowing them to control and improve upon existing quality and have full financial traceability. Ensuring these two factors would help pay higher prices for the coffees and to make sure that producers received a fair price for the coffee they delivered, above the market price. In order to do this, they set up a warehouse in Jaen and started to buy in parchment directly from producers.

The Cajamarca region holds a lot of potential for quality coffee, with ideal growing conditions and great varieties, but quality is often lost in picking, processing and drying, with producers lacking infrastructure and knowledge. The most vulnerable producers are those that are unassociated – those who aren’t members of a cooperative, association or organisation – and they represent 75% of producers in Northern Peru. These producers don’t have access to training sessions or premiums for quality or certifications, and their income is totally dependent on the market price. Often, local aggregators – a buyer who lives in the same area – will come to the farm or house of a producer and buy their coffee for cash before selling it on; in some cases, directly to an exporter or more often to other traders and middlemen. This results in the producer being paid very little for their coffee and a lot of quality coffee is lost.

This shift in approach to sourcing will allow our importer to forge long term relationships directly with farmers, improve the coffee quality in these areas and increase producer household income through access to quality premiums. They now have over 438 registered farmers across the San Ignacio and Jaen provinces.