Quebrada Honda Organic
Peru
A bright, clean coffee with a creamy mouth feel. Lovely full body. I find it has a pleasant toffee, syrupy feel to it as well. Lovely sweet finish.
This coffee is made up of lots grown by smallholder farmers in the fertile Yanatile Valley, in the Cusco region of Peru’s southern highlands. These farms are located between 1,200 to 1,900m above sea level in this remote Andean valley, which lies in the mountains to the north of the Machu Picchu ruins. Most of these farms are traditional family run operations, which have been passed on from generation to generation.
All the farms are organic certified. The coffee is grown in the shade of native trees, this provides important habitat for many indigenous bird and animal species, such as parrots, humming birds and armadillos.
Coffee is this remote region’s main legal crop, and as such plays an important role as the most profitable alternative to growing Coca – the plant used to produce cocaine, which is frequently grown (illegally in Peru) in the same areas as coffee.
The harvest usually runs from March until August, peaking in April to June. All of the family usually takes part. The coffee is fully washed by each producer in the traditional manner - the bad or unripe cherries are separated by immersion in water (the ripe cherries sink), then the cherries are pulped and fermented for between 12 and 18 hours to remove the mucilage. The waste water from this process is filtered to avoid contaminating the surrounding land. The coffee is then dried in the sun on concrete patios until it reaches 12% humidity.
Each individual lot is blind cupped before being included in the overall lot. Our export partner is also working with these farmers to increase the quality (and therefore profitability) of their coffee, hosting workshops and courses, and encouraging farmers to plant more of their land with native Arabica varietals.