About This Coffee
Javier Abad is a highly dedicated producer who is committed to the work he carries out on his plot of land. Javier serves as an example and demonstrates that working in agriculture yields great results. Together with his family (his wife and son), he cultivates high-quality Bourbon, a tradition passed down through generations on their farms
Cultivation
Javier's farm is located in a high-altitude region and working with varieties susceptible to coffee leaf rust (such as Bourbon), faces greater challenges, but also a great reward, reflected in the coffee cup. The production processes are relatively slower—ranging from flowering to harvest, which can take 8 to 10 months—allowing for optimal bean development and a concentration of attributes that ensure a complex and special flavor profile.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
This Fully washed coffee undergoes a meticulous process that includes selective harvesting, flotation to separate impurities, depulping, fermentation for 36 hours, and thorough washing.
The drying phase is equally meticulous, using solar dryers throughout 35 to 45 days. The process employs Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE) and diamond mesh, ensuring controlled and consistent drying conditions.
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.