About This Coffee
This La Coipa lot is a collaboration between Finca Churupampa and 20 smallholder farmers living in and around La Coipa, Cajamarca. The result is a harmonious blend of delicate chamomile and black tea notes, along with a bright hint of lemongrass and grounded in dark chocolate and almond warmth.
Churupampa has been working with the group since around 2020/2021 and have continued to be impressed by the high quality of their partner farmers’ production.
Cultivation
In the region, most farms are shade-grown, with shade provided by guaba, albizia, laricaro and fruit trees.
Contributing farmers are Certified Organic and have achieved Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC), as well. ROC builds upon existing Organic and social fairness certifications while adding three core pillars focused on improving the social and environmental conditions of coffee production. The pillars for coffee production are soil health and social fairness.
Soil health means cultivating a healthy topsoil that grows stronger and deeper each year. ROC farmers focus on promoting biodiversity, eliminating pesticides and protecting natural ecosystems.
In addition to the strong agricultural practices followed by contributing producers from La Coipa, the Toctos have also implemented initiatives to strengthen food security, ranging from vegetable farming to raising small livestock.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
Ripe cherries are selectively handpicked to ensure quality and uniformity, then carefully sorted to remove overripe, underripe or defective fruit. The cherries are also floated in buckets to eliminate lightweight and lower-quality fruit. Coffee undergoes fermentation in tanks for 12 to 15 hours before being pulped. This step is followed by an additional fermentation of approximately 12 hours to fully remove the mucilage. Once fermentation is complete, the parchment is washed with clean water and dried on drying modules or raised beds for around 15 days, followed by a resting period under controlled conditions.
About Finca Churupampa
Finca Churupampa is a progressive coffee farm located in the town of Chirinos, Cajamarca, Peru run by Eber Tocto and his brothers. Since assuming operations of the farm from their parents, the Tocto brothers have transformed Finca Churupampa into a leading model for economically and environmentally sustainable coffee production. The Tocto brothers see Finca Churupampa not just as a coffee farm, but also as a social enterprise with a mission to revitalize the economic and social landscape of Chirinos. By helping their farmer members to increase the quality of their coffee, they can improve their farmers’ incomes and quality of life.
In addition to selling coffee from their own farm, the Toctos provide export and marketing services for 188 neighboring farmers. Finca Churupampa also operates a training center that is open to the entire community, working with farmers to improve their production practices and break the cycle of poverty that has trapped farmers in the region for many years.
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.