In the Grinder - Our Daily Coffee Weblog

We arrived in Piura and headed to the Cepicafe Mill to meet with Daniel and Elias from Cenfrocafe.  Cepicafe is the dry mill that our partner Cenfrocafe uses to mill the coffee and load our containers for shipment.   We sorted out some of the non romantic work of how to get coffees out more efficiently.  

We watched one of the producers we knew from up in the mountains take the tarp off a truck of coffee.  He is a driver for Cenfrocafe when he is not busy working on his farm.   The coffee is moved from Jaen to Piura just before milling and shipment.

Below is a tag on a large lot of coffee but the smaller lots we assemble into our top end containers are tagged individually by bag. They have set aside separate areas for the keeping of finer coffees by region.  Each bag is tagged to prevent unintended mixing of lots.

   

We moved on to lunch and had a great meal of seafood including ceviches and deep fried Mero which is a fish caught off the coast.  They were having a competition for the best Ceviche in Northern Peru and we were the beneficiaries of their efforts.  We washed this down with Chicha Morada which is a sweet red corn drink with a hint of clove.  It is quite strong so we were mixing it with agua con gas (soda water) which was incredibly refreshing.

We squeezed 4 of us + driver into a 4wd Hilux for the 6 hour drive to Jaen.  The road to Jaen is very good and one of only 3 that transect the Andes from the amazon.  They were resurfacing it so the road was a little slow but the driver was excellent and we arrived early evening in Jaen.  The year before we made this trip at night and the driver was going very fast so we appreciated this drivers smooth ride.    

 

 

 

 

 

Jaen is a busy little frontier town that was started in the 70's after the land reform that created thousands of small farms in this region.   Most of them are 2-3 hectares and are in midst of shaded areas and 2nd growth forest.  Many of the best coffees are in the buffer zone surrounding the Tabacones forest preserve.

We visited a number of farms and saw the processing and screen drying that designates the best of the farms.   There are more than 2000 growers in Cenfrocafe. The higher altitude farms are doing the washing and drying to 12% on the farms with screens.  It rains in this area quite a bit so the solar driers with plastic rooves are necessary.

This northern area of peru produces some of the best rice I have ever tasted.  It was almost as good as the best rice in Japan that is bound for the imperial household.  This rice is grown in traditionalo flooded rice paddies.

We visited a school where they did some dances for us and showed off their carvings of the spectacled bear. 

Outside the school there was a foosball table that was pretty well used.

This area is filled with hard working, environmentally conscious people who are starting to make good lives for themselves and protect the environment.  Farmers are fairly paid for their coffees and the quality incentives that are used for purchasing are improving all the coffees they produce and instilling quality processing.

We are excited about this area and look forward to offering some of these fine coffees in the autumn.