In the Grinder - Our Daily Coffee Weblog

Tim and I made it back from the Andes mountains in Southern Peru, and we both thought it was a very productive trip. The landscape in southern Peru is truly breathtaking. Rosa Maria from HVC and K.C. O'Keefe from Cafe Verde were our guides on this trip, and they showed us the projects they are working on together in the regions of Quebrada and Quillabamba Peru.

Just to give you a little background into HVC, it is one of the major commercial coffee exporters in Peru. With Rosa Maria behind the wheel, they are now beginning to make a major drive into specialty coffee. Rosa Maria left her cozy lifestyle in Lima to go live in Quillabamba full time in order to oversee the training of farmers in the region of how to properly pick and process specialty coffee. K.C. O'Keefe is acting as her partner in quality control. He (Cafe Verde) is cupping and exporting all of the coffee coming out of this program. This will be "Cafe Verde" branded coffee when it arrives to us at Cafe Imports. She and K.C. are unbelievably dedicated to this project. HVC is certified Organic, and we anticipate some awesome organic Perus to come from them later this year.

 The ride into Quillabamba from Cuzco was filled with switchbacks up and down the Andes mountains. Cuzco is at 11,000 feet in elevation, and the air was very thin to begin the trip. "Water, water, water...and Ibuprofen" as Tim would say. As we traveled down into Quillabamba and Quebrada, most specialty farms are around 6,000 feet or 2,000 meters.

These small farms in the region are typically producing 5-10 quintales (100 lb sacs) of green coffee in parchment per hectare, and most farms are 2 hectares or smaller. HVC has drivers that go every Sunday during harvest season to the farms to pick up the coffee. The parchment is then milled in either Quillabamba or Lima and prepared for shipment. 

K.C and Rosa Maria have developed a payment system for the farmers that is dependent upon cup quality. This gives the farmers an incentive to pick and process the best possible coffee. K.C. has stressed to the farmers the importance of proper drying in parchment. He is introducing things like transparent tarps (for unexpected rains) and raised beds to continue to improve the quality of these farmer's coffee and ultimately help them generate more money for themselves and their families.

We are very excited about Peru. It has more potential coffee farming land than all of Central America combined. We know this country has yet to even get close to reaching it's full potential in capacity and quality.

Adios!

Noah