Heres what Kamba Coffee the importer of this coffee have to say about it.
Jose Arce owns two parcels of land in the Alto Pirias village in Chirinos district, San Ignacio province. Combined, the two plots of land amounts to 2ha with the main varieties being caturra, bourbon and catimor. Jose arrived in Alto Pirias from Chota, a city near to Cajamarca where the main crops are potato, beans, peas and squash. He originally came to work the coffee farms between harvest seasons in Chota for a bit of extra income, but liked the climate and saw more opportunity to own land in Chirinos than in his hometown. After a number of years picking and weeding for other coffee farmers, he saved up to buy a small half-hectare plot.
Since coffee takes at least three years to fruit, Jose had to continue working for other farms whilst he planted his own land. A few years down the line, Jose had bought and planted another plot of land and grew his total area to around 2ha.
Jose and his brothers and cousins work the land together and form what they call an Ayni in Peru. This is an Andean term which comes from pre-Hispanic times and basically means “a favour for a favour”. For example, Jose will work a day picking for his brother’s farm and then his brother will return the favour the next day by working in Jose’s farm. This communal approach to work and farming is typical of smallholder agriculture in Peru and is an essential part of maintaining the farms productivity. It’s often hard to find reliable workers as many producers don’t have space to house them or money to pay them, so this favour for a favour work dynamic is invaluable to getting coffee planted, cared for, and harvested.
This year, faced with a bumper crop, Jose produced a single lot of washed coffee due to time and space constraints for naturals. After picking, cherries are transported to Jose’s house, where he employs a small pulper, fermentation tanks, and a drying area. Occasionally, Jose lets floated cherries ferment overnight before early morning pulping. The coffee then undergoes a 48-hour fermentation in Grainpro bags before being washed and dried on raised beds for 10 to 15 days, dependent on weather conditions.
