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Harvest is going well, in fact more than well... in fact it is the greatest harvest I have ever participated in! Coffee is not only Peruvian treasure Išve been searching for over the last few years...and now Išve found her.
Yes, this harvest I have finally encountered the treasure of a lifetime, my beautiful wife Tatiana. We were married July 9th in the Town of Moyobamba (Tatianašs home town), and then took a quick honey moon to the San Juanšs of the Puget Sound. Providence has been good to us, and gives me yet another reason to be grateful for this coffee adventure which has lead me to Peru.
Coffee harvest is about 60% complete and will finish up in late August. We are happy to say that the farmers continue to increase their quality. At this point 47% of the coffee is passing our Direct Relationship cupping  standards, as opposed to 24% of the coffee from the same group of farmers a year ago. We attribute the farmers continued improvement to education, individual reward and the encouragement from roasters visits.
In Cusco (southern Peru) the harvest has slowed a bit due to wet and cold weather in the last few weeks. More than 300 farmers are participating in our programs there, and two new villages are participating this year.
Another Cusco note is that our two fermentation experiment stations are up and running. Our goal is to have data connecting various micro-fermentation methods and our cupping results. Both stations are operated by farmers on their farms, which helps us give credibility to the results among the community members.
We are in the middle of Café Selvanica (northern Peru) evaluations. We began working for the first time with two new communities who are neighbors of past Selvanica farmers. More than 100 farmers are participating in Selvanica production this year. It has been wonderful to see the farmers acting as professors of quality coffee production. These three communities have made visits and exchange information amongst themselves. Engineer Rossmery was amazed on her farm evaluations at how far the farmers had come along in improving their processing stations in just a yearšs time.
A new wife and consistent improvement from farmers, what more can a coffee buyer in Peru ask for?
From Lima,
K.C. OšKeefe
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