The Producer

Juan has been producing coffee on his 2-hectare farm, Finca Altos Cedruyoc, since 2015. It is named for the wealth of cedar trees in the area. Coffee production is a family endeavour on the farm, and Juan is working in tandem with his wife and two children. They are continually working to produce high quality coffee, of both Bourbon and Maragogype varieties, and Juan uses his experience as an agronomist in tending to their crops.

When we visited some of the Valle Inca members with the group president, José Prudencio, we were able to connect with Juan for dinner and he was very gentle and forthcoming, even after a long day of picking and processing coffee with his family.

Their Approach

The family farm is quite remote, amidst lots of native wildlife and vegetation, which Juan does his best to preserve and respect. As well as mature coffee trees that are already bearing fruit, Juan tends to a small nursery of coffee seedlings which will allow them to replace sick and tired trees as well as expand their production. They are working organically at Finca Altos Cedruyoc, applying natural fertilisers to their coffee trees, and growing the coffee under shade canopies.

At harvest time Juan and his family collect the ripe coffee cherries before manually depulping and fermenting under water for 25 hours. After scrubbing and washing off the broken-down mucilage they are put to dry for between 9 and 15 days on raised beds in polytunnels, which were built courtesy of funds donated by the Valle Inca Association.

The Association

In 2018, our first year buying coffee through Valle Inca, the group had around 100 members. Thanks to word of mouth, with producers telling their neighbours of the premium prices that they were able to receive having been able to access a more discerning coffee market through the association, the group now works with 261 producers around the Cusco region.

All the members are working organically and are certified as such via the Valle Inca group. For a member to join, there needs to be a baseline of quality met, dictated in part by altitude and the type of varieties planted, but ultimately it is down to the desire of each member to improve their quality through hard work. The group provide agronomical advice and training as well as pre-financing, so the farmer members are supported in multiple ways. Several of their members, including Juan, repeatedly place well in Peru’s Cup of Excellence competition.