About This Coffee
Laguna de los Cóndores translates as ‘Lagoon of the Condors’. Farmers in Luya Province, Peru are proud of their heritage as people of the mountains, living as high in the mountains as condors fly. They speak of their ancestors, the Chillaos, as people who were made strong and “indomitable” by their lives among the clouds in the high Andes.
According to legend, the Chillaos were the first to grow coffee at such high altitudes and to discover the incredible quality that could be achieved at such heights. The members of the cooperative see coffee as their heritage: a source of energy, strength and courage for their ancestors and an integral part of social, cultural and economic life for member farmers.
The cooperative is focused on improving quality of life and income for its members. They offer several projects designed to improve soil health, increase coffee quality and promote healthy, happy lives for its members.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
The modern-day cloud-dwellers of Cooperativa Cafetalera Laguna de los Cóndores farm coffee on many of the peaks where their ancestors have worked for centuries.
After selectively handpicking their cherry along the steep, often terraced slopes, farmers process their cherry on their own farms. Farmers use hand pulpers to pulp cherry and then ferment it for 36 to 48 hours, depending on ambient temperature. After washing to remove the remaining mucilage, parchment is laid in the sun to dry on small patios.
About Cooperativa Cafetalera Laguna de los Cóndores
Cooperativa Cafetalera Laguna de los Cóndores grew out of a recognition that the global coffee market was changing. While people in the mountains in Luya have been farming coffee since the 1600s, the demands of the modern market bring a completely different set of challenges.
Member farmers focus on improving production techniques to create a high-quality product that stands out among the coffee production in Peru and the world as a whole.
Laguna de los Cóndores takes its name from the breathtaking vistas of its home. One particular mountain in Luya is central to the life and culture of those who live among the mountains. The Black Mountain—or Sacha Yana, in the native language, Quechua— is named for its dizzyingly high altitudes that reach over 3,000 meters above sea level. Sacha Yana’s slopes are hidden beneath a blanket of native trees. The forests provide homes for a wide range of native wildlife and is the source of a beautiful lagoon. Native Andean Condors often visit the lagoon to drink and hunt.
Coffee in Peru
Peru holds exceptional promise as a producer of high-quality coffees. The country is the largest exporter of organic Arabica coffee globally. With extremely high altitudes and fertile soils, the country’s smallholder farmers also produce some stunning specialty coffees.
Though coffee arrived in Peru in the 1700s, very little coffee was exported until the late 1800s. Until that point, most coffee produced in Peru was consumed locally. When coffee leaf rust hit Indonesia in the late 1800s, a country central to European coffee imports at the time, Europeans began searching elsewhere for their fix. Peru was a perfect option.
Between the late 1800s and the first World War, European interests invested significant resources into coffee production in Peru. However, with the advent of the two World Wars, England and other European powers became weakened and took a less colonialist perspective. When the British and other European land owners left, their land was purchased by the government and redistributed to locals. The Peruvian government repurchased the 2 million hectares previously granted to England and distributed the lands to thousands of local farmers. Many of these farmers later grew coffee on the lands they received.
Today, Peruvian coffee growers are overwhelmingly small scale. Farmers in Peru usually process their coffee on their own farms. Most coffee is Fully washed. Cherry is usually pulped, fermented and dried in the sun on raised beds or drying sheds. Drying greenhouses and parabolic beds are becoming more common as farmers pivot towards specialty markets.
After drying, coffee will then be sold in parchment to the cooperative. Producers who are not members of a cooperative will usually sell to a middleman.
The remoteness of farms combined with their small size means that producers need either middlemen or cooperatives to help get their coffee to market. Cooperative membership protects farmers greatly from exploitation and can make a huge difference to income from coffee. Nonetheless, currently only around 15-25% of smallholder farmers have joined a coop group.