About This Coffee
Segundo Pintado Laban has built his coffee reputation through commitment and consistency, with a strong interest in improving the quality of his coffee year after year. He began his formal training in quality improvement through courses at a cooperative in Tamborapa (Cajamarca), where he gained knowledge in selective harvesting, coffee evaluation in training modules and fermentation processes.
Segundo first began participating in local quality competitions at the ExpoCafé Tabaconas, held in Tamborapa. He won the prize after only working on specialty production for five years, marking a decisive moment in his development as a coffee farmer. Following this achievement, he began a continuous process of improvement in his practices and in the quality of his coffee, reflected in a cup score of 91.5 points in 2023 at the ExpoCafé Cajamarca. Since then, he has continued working with the goal of further refining his coffee quality, convinced that learning and continuous improvement are the foundation of everything he has achieved to date.
Cultivation
Segundo begins his cultivation with careful seed selection for planting, followed by nursery plant production and gradual transplanting to the field. Seedlings are closely managed through manual weeding and structured pruning to support healthy growth and balanced plant development.
Trees are planted at a spacing of 3 meters between rows and 80 centimeters between plants, promoting airflow and uniform ripening of cherry when the plants are mature. He prioritizes organic fertilizers and bioles, ongoing soil monitoring and proactive management of the main coffee diseases to maintain plant health and long term productivity.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
Coffee is selectively hand harvested, collecting only fully ripe cherries. For this lot, Segundo used an extended fermentation method. After harvesting and sorting, he rests the coffee as whole cherry for approximately 32 hours before pulping. After pulping, coffee then undergoes a 36 to 40-hour anaerobic fermentation, which is carefully controlled to preserve cleanliness and clarity in the cup. Once fermentation is complete, the coffee is lightly washed and left to drain on mesh beds for approximately 4 days before final drying.
After draining off excess water, the coffee is transferred to a parabolic dryer, where it is gradually dried using gentle heat and good ventilation. The coffee remains, being turned frequently, until it reaches the appropriate moisture level.
About Geisha
Geisha (also known as Gesha) is known for its exceptional cup quality, especially when grown at high altitudes. The variety comes from Ethiopian landrace coffees and was collected from Ethiopian coffee forests in the 1930s. The name supposedly derives from Ethiopia’s Gori Gesha forest.
There is some confusion with several genetically distinct varieties that have all been called Geisha, but the most famous variety is the Panama one. The variety was brought to Lyamungu research station in Tanzania and from there to Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE) in Central America in 1953. At CATIE, the variety was logged as T2722. CATIE distributed T2722 across Panama in the 1960s for its Coffee Leaf Rust (CLR) resistance, but its brittle branches meant it was not widely planted.
Panama Geisha reached its modern fame in 2005 when a Geisha lot won the “Best of Panama” competition and broke contemporary records at over $20/pound. DNA analysis has demonstrated that the Panama Geisha descended from T2722 is distinct and uniform. Today, Geisha is known for its delicate florals, jasmine and stone fruit.
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.