Notes from our importer, Cultivar Coffees - Peruvian specialty coffee:

Jaime and his father are based out in Jaen, quite near our warehouse in the north of the

country, in the Cajamarca region.

Back in 2022, our ex-agronomist Dreyde was giving a talk for farmers at another area in the region and James happened to be attending it. They got to keep in touch and quickly he understood James had loads of potential.

His family has been growing coffee for decades now. He has helped his father grow coffee ever since he was a kid. When specialty coffee buyers started to shake things up in Cajamarca a few years ago and started to look for higher quality lots, James and his father realized they had to follow up. They planted Yellow Caturra first and Geisha a few years later.

In 2021 they had the first harvest of Geisha which they mixed up with their Yellow Caturra due to the low production. In the following seasons, we have been buying their full production and it was only a few months ago when we tried something different with them. We suggested to do a Honey process with their Geisha beans. They harvest the cherries in the peak of ripeness, then they put these cherries into closed bags for 36 hours, after that they depulp them and put them again to ferment into plastic bags for 3 days. It’s important to keep track of temperatureof the beans inside these bags and move them every now and then so that they can ferment uniformly.

After 3 days, the plastic bags are spread out into a thick layer (around 10 cm tall) in open air for 48 hours, here again moving the beans often is key to avoid over fermentation.

Finally, the coffee is put to dry for 14 days avoiding the peak hours of sun every day.

It’s an intense labor procedure but the results were fantastic. Very complex cup with some of the traits from the Geisha beans. We are super excited for the years to come and to keep exploring processing opportunities with James and his father!