About This Coffee
The Asociacion de Productores Cafetaleros Andinos Sierra verde, Sierra Verde for short, was founded in 2015 to support producing members cultivate coffee in a sustainable and effective manner. Their Fairtrade Organic certification helps them achieve strong market prices for members and makes it possible for member to improve production quality and support their families. Sierra Verde provides technical assistance to improve yields and increase quality.
Cultivation
Most farms are located around Cutervo National Park. The high altitudes of 1,550 to 2,000 meters above sea level provide the ideal conditions for cultivating sweet, dense cherry.
Members use agroforestry techniques to conserve the environment, improve production and grow other sustenance and cash crops. Their methods are entirely Organic and support the environment.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
Most farms are small and labor is done by the family. Some families may hire additional labor during harvest time to ensure cherry is picked at peak ripeness. Most coffee is processed on the farm. Producers use hand crank or mechanical pulpers to pulp cherry and then place it to ferment in bags or tanks. Following fermentation, parchment is washed in clean water and laid on parabolic beds or on tarps on patios to dry. Parchment is raked frequently to ensure even drying.
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.