Santa Teresa

After three years of working with lots from the Santa Teresa community in Peru’s Cusco region we are excited to showcase this outturn on our rotating single origin menu, having seen the overall quality and flavour clarity increase year-on-year. 

The Association

This lot of coffee from Santa Teresa represents a small community near the town of Quillabamba in Peru’s Cusco province. Small hold coffee farmers in the area partner with the agronomical co-operative group Huadquiña, from whom we’ve bought lots for the last three years. Previously these have featured in festive coffee drops and our house blend, Article, but this year we feel the flavour clarity and overall quality allow the coffee to be showcased as a seasonal single origin espresso release. Huadquiña, initially established in the 1960s, work with several hundred coffee farmers in Cusco, and is comprised of indigenous peoples, some of whom are the children of the initial founding members of the group. Coffees sold under the names Salkantay and Santa Teresa represent distinct communities across the area. 

Their Approach

The group boasts various certifications, such as FairTrade and Organic, but what matter more to us as buyers is that we’re working with dedicated growers, farming sustainably to produce quality outturns, that in turn allow us to pay premium prices to ensure they are economically prosperous and can see a viable future working in coffee. 

Mixed cultivars, primarily Typica and Bourbon types, are planted from 1,800 to 2,000 metres, and grown in an agroforestry system, amidst native shade trees and intercropped with secondary food crops. The area is very biodiverse and there is an ingrained cultural respect for the earth which feeds into their agronomical practices, such as eschewing chemical agro-inputs or weedkillers, instead using organic homemade composts and manually clearing weeds. 

Harvesting is all done via Mingas (communal work reciprocated amongst neighbours) reflecting the communities sense of reciprocity called ‘Ayni’, which loosely translates as ‘today for you, tomorrow for me’. After harvesting the coffees are manually depulped before being traditionally fermented in water for up to 20hrs, fully washed and dried on raised beds for between 10 and 20 days.