Peru Discovered

by K.C. O'Keefe

Welcome to coffee trading in Peru. A country with as many languages and cultures as climatic zones, Peru is bound to the southern coast by one of the driest places on earth, and flooded in the northeastern corner by the torrential Amazon rainforest. But beyond the physical and environmental challenges, Peru bears a hidden treasure--some of the world's most exquisite heirloom coffees.

A Fragmented Coffee Industry

Peru's crippling history has for decades kept the country's most precious coffees trapped within the canyons of high jungle. Sadly, terrorism, political and economic crisis, corruption, and a lack of travel routes have contributed to mass production of low-quality coffee characterized as overly mild, overly fermented and/or overly earthy.

Coffee was first introduced to Peru for production in the late 1700s. After two centuries, the heirloom typica variety still comprises 35 percent of the country's exports. It wasn't until 1950 that bourbon was introduced. Combined, these two varieties currently make up 60 percent of Peruvian coffee production. While 40 percent of Peru's coffee exports are newer varieties such as caturra and catimor, some villages are still producing 100 percent typica.

In the '60s Peru's socialist-influenced government took the dramatic step of land reform. Land was ripped from plantation owners, who for generations had invested in obtaining and applying the finest agricultural education. The owners received valueless government coupons as they were told to leave their property, and the land was divided and given to peasants. Large landowners either moved to Lima and opened small businesses, or they stayed in rural areas to become co-op leaders. The result was absolute chaos in coffee production and exportation, a situation that still haunts Peru today.

Organizing coffee production, processing and exporting would be a logical step toward improving Peruvian coffee, but the country still has no national coffee management system. The extremely fragmented leadership of more than 80 registered exporters--who fear that they might lose control of their producers and markets--continues to hinder the formation of a national committee.

There are more than 110,000 coffee growers in Peru, most of whom speak Spanish as a second language. The average land-holding farmer lives on two or three hectares, hours away from the comforts of electricity and running water. Each year, impoverished farmers set out to establish new, isolated farms in the country's pristine cloud forests. They are driven into the virgin high jungle by the economic need to increase their production, or because they have been working as farm hands and simply want to own their own land.

Peruvian Processing

If Peruvian coffee farms are small, the country's typical micro-wet-milling operation is even smaller. From May to September, farmers pick ripe cherries and carry them to hand pulpers and wooden fermentation tanks. This tradition of micro-wet-milling has protected Peru's water resources from the devastating effects of river-polluting pulping factories, but it is also the main reason that much of Peru's coffee is inconsistent and overly fermented.

They know they need to ferment and wash their coffee before drying it to prevent rot--which leads to weight loss and corresponding financial loss--but that's where the adherence to convention ends. At the beginning and end of the harvest season, fewer ripe cherries need to be wet-milled, and, as a result, coffee in the parchment tends to languish in fermentation tanks for up to three days, rather than the ideal 12- to 18-hour fermentation. Then, during the busiest weeks of harvest, pulped coffee parchment is rushed through fermentation tanks, not allowing enough time for the biological process to eat away the attached cherry mucilage. The mucilage then causes souring as the coffee is laid out on drying patios. For farmers who rarely taste their coffee and who have no financial motivation for exact fermentation control, the color changes are the only indications of correct or incorrect fermentation.

The only exceptions I've found to the above scenario have been when education and financial motivation are given to farmers through some sort of direct relationship with market representatives who bypass intermediary traders. In these cases, farmers carefully process each batch of coffee, because they know that they will be directly rewarded for the quality they produce.

After processing their coffee, most farmers hike their beans by foot or mule into the nearest town--a trip that can take anywhere from 30 minutes to eight hours. On Saturdays, the plaza of the closest town becomes a buying and selling station for the surrounding remote coffee growers. Farmers sell their coffee and buy goods for their homes before heading back up the mountainous foot trails. An unfortunate (and all too common) day means only one buyer arrives and prices are cut in half. With no personal warehouse space and only unreliable, expensive collective storage in town, farmers take the cuts and sell. This process is then repeated by buyers in the main city of the region during the week. The more remote the farms, the more times the coffees are mixed and traded before they arrive at the coast. Once there, the coffee is dry-milled and prepared for export.

This unorganized trading system and isolation has caused farmers to become estranged from the end beverage that comes from their farms. For many years, growers have worked on a weight/dollar exchange for their coffee in the parchment, completely disconnecting the idea that they produce a beverage that will be enjoyed--or thrown away--based on its quality. To add weight to their harvest, many farmers store and transport coffee at a dangerous 25 percent moisture content in the parchment, destroying the coffee's valuable inherent qualities and contributing to souring. Intermediary traders have even been known to increase the weight by throwing sand and water into each bag.

The Impact of Coca

Coca production and its corresponding terror has wreaked havoc on Peru's coffee industry. In the '70s, many peasant farmers welcomed a sustainable income from coca cultivation, but it also brought the corruption and civil war that defined the late '70s and '80s. The terrorism of the Shining Path, a revolutionary movement supported by drug trafficking, eventually invaded the coffee-growing communities of the central high jungle.

Donna Tillda, a farmer from the state of Ayacucho who lost several family members to terrorism, remembers terrorists moving into her village and demanding the farmers replace coffee with coca. "It was either produce coca or die," she says. Her family opted to flee the village instead.

Although much of the terror has stopped, coca production is as strong as ever. Coffee may be Peru's primary "legal" agricultural export, but estimates show that Peru produces one-third of the world's coca, a figure that doesn't look to decline anytime soon. And with the coffee industry's current price crisis, Peruvian coffee farmers are viewing coca as a more feasible alternative income. Visiting the Cusco region recently, I saw acres of shade-grown coffee farms ripped out of the ground and replaced with sun-grown coca shrubs. Farmers told me that they could earn 12 times more per year for the same land use. What's more, coca justifies the use of harmful chemical pesticides and fertilizers. On the flip side, as much as 90 percent of Peruvian coffee is de-facto, or passively organic.

Cups of Peru

Characterizing Peruvian coffees requires as many disclaimers as descriptions. As often as I discover one farm producing exciting cups, I find a neighboring farm that is losing quality to poor wet-processing practices. Several times after visiting coffee villages I have raced to the nearest city with electricity, pulled an electric roaster out of my camping pack and plugged it in. Thirty minutes later I am so excited by my discovery that I'm back up the rainforest trail to retrieve samples from each farmer in the village. Arriving back at my base town I spend a day cupping the samples. Unfortunately, they are often all over the map, with the most common characteristic being overly fermented. Still, these coffee communities have the potential to learn how correct processing can raise their cups to the level of "specialty."

Disclaimers aside, there are some general characteristics and highlights that I have found from various regions of Peru. The Camera Peruana de Cafe (Coffee Chamber of Commerce) divides production into three major geographic regions--south, central and north--with 10 sub-regions defined by departments or states. Because of Peru's geography and microclimates, a wide variety of cup characteristics can be found within the 10 sub-regions. Soaring Andean ranges protrude into the High Amazon Forest and Northern Coast, allowing coffee to be grown at altitudes between 1000 and 6000 feet.

In Southeastern Peru is Lake Titicaca, the world's highest navigable lake (12,725 feet above sea level), which falls within the coffee-producing state of Puno. Puno coffees are full-bodied and extremely citrusy, but because of the low production of just over 3000 bags per year and the remote location of the high Bolivia-Peru border, they are very rare. Good luck in finding a well-processed, unblended Puno; if you do, savor every last bean!

One of the oldest and largest coffee-producing regions is the southern state of Cusco, home to the famous Incan ruins of Machu Picchu. Depending on the altitude, Cusco coffees can match the fruity acidity of Punos. Apart from coffees from the central state of Junin, I have found the high-altitude coffees of Cusco to be the most consistently balanced Peruvian coffees.

The central region of Peru contains the most famous and organized plantations. The Villa Rica and La Merced areas are probably the best known in the region. While these areas physically lie in the state of Junin, they are commonly recognized as being from the Chanchamoyo region. In the last century, Austrian and German immigrants migrated to the area and organized coffee production. I was able to cup the winner of this year's Peruvian cupping competition, which came from La Merced area. It had the thick, creamy body typical of Chanchamoyo coffees. Its acidity had delightful salmonberry tones but was not overpowering like high-grown Puno and Cusco coffees.

Coffees from the north are the most challenging to categorize and typically the most unreliable. The region's distance from Lima and the newness of its production (over half of production is less than 20 years old) has created an immense gap in quality education for farmers and traders. The state of San Martin, for instance, held its first cupping competition last August. And because of the unreliability and defects, coffee from the north is subject to an automatic 10-kilo discount between local and national buyers.

Clean northern coffees are the mildest of Peru, often with a smoky, earthy flavor. And some northern coffees are cherished for their extremely full body and delicate sweetness.

Relationship Coffee

In a nation where more than 100,000 farmers hand-pick and -process their own coffees, education and financial motivations are key to discovering and developing quality beans. Farmers are often undereducated about producing quality coffee, and there is little to no financial motivation to harvest ripe cherries, ferment with exact timing control and dry coffee to a moisture content of 13 percent. What's more, the remoteness of the farms from roads and towns hinders the development of controlled wet mills and drying stations. Perhaps one of the only options left for preserving exotic Peruvian coffees is to establish direct relationships with growers and educate and motivate them to produce exceptional coffee.

In the summer of 2000, I invited a group of farmers from the north to taste coffee with me. Six hours away from their village, in the nearest town with electricity, I plugged in a grinder and brewer and prepared their beans, intending to demonstrate how the typical American enjoys a cup of coffee. They were almost as amazed as I was when they told me this was the first time they had ever seen an electric coffee maker. It was magical to watch them connect with the idea that what they do at the farm level directly impacts the enjoyment of coffee consumers 5000 miles away. The experience convinced me that these farmers are eager to learn more about coffee on all levels, and they are especially desperate to establish direct relationships with representatives of the consuming market.

Direct relationships bypass intermediaries who keep quality coffee knowledge and financial motivations hidden from growers. To me, direct relationships mean working with the people actually growing the coffee and offering the education, financial motivation and dignity they need to improve their cups.

During the 2000 harvest, I started cupping with growers in San Martin who had rarely tasted their own coffees, let alone cupped them. The first questions they asked were how their cup quality compared to other coffees in the region and what they could do to improve their farms. Each time I return to the community, I see improvements in the fermentation tanks and drying systems, confirming that the farmers are indeed applying the ideas I've passed on.

It's a joy to see the farmers of Peru make a direct connection between the farm and the cup. Now it's our turn to make the direct connection between the cup and farmer.

K.C. O'Keefe is founder and co-owner of Jungle Tech, a Peruvian coffee import company. He spends more than six months a year in Peru working with coffee farmers. He can be reached at (253) 332-4670 or via e-mail at kc@jungle-tech.com.