About This Coffee
Rumiyacu means “river of stones” in Quechua. The name comes from a nearby water source where smooth, rounded stones have been shaped by time and flow, reflecting the group’s resilient, balanced approach to coffee.
With support from Café Monteverde’s technical team, Rumiyacu producers have introduced practices that improve quality and support their land. Today, they lead a reforestation program aiming to plant over 3,000 native trees. Several farms in the group are now recognized as model farms for how they combine shade management, solar drying, water conservation, farm renovation and environmental zoning.
Cultivation
At altitudes from 1,600 to 1,800 meters, the Rumiyacu member farms benefit from ideal growing conditions for specialty coffee. Bourbon, Caturra, Pache and Pacamara varieties thrive in these cool highlands. With regular training and hands-on technical support, producers apply responsible practices that protect yields and improve cup quality year after year.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
Members and their families selectively handpick ripe, red cherry and process it on their farms. They pulp cherry and ferment it for 12 to 24 hours in plastic tanks. Following fermentation, parchment is fully washed in clean water and laid to dry on raised beds inside solar dryers.
About Monteverde
Café Monteverde establishes relationships with a wide range of producers and producer organizations. In addition to producing a range of their own micro-lots from Finca Timbuyacu, Alfonso and Karim focus on providing a range of services for producer-members and helping market their coffee.
Monteverde helps member farms take steps to ensure good soil management and conservation. Members plant living barriers and diverse shade trees and add contour lines to reduce erosion. Alfonso and Karim also take an active role in the communities of their producers. In 2010, the organization collectively purchased a playground for children in one producer community. Then, in 2014, they purchased 40 new mattresses for children whose sleeping conditions were substandard.
Since it was founded, Café Monteverde has been establishing relationships with a wide range of producers and producer organizations. In addition to producing a range of their own micro-lots from Finca Timbuyacu, the cooperative also markets group lots and provides a range of services for the producers with whom they work.
Monteverde helps member farms take steps to ensure good soil management and conservation. Members plant living barriers and diverse shade trees and add contour lines to reduce erosion. Araoz and Tejada are also taking an active role in the communities of their producers. In 2010, the organisation collectively purchased a playground for children in one producer community. Then, in 2014, they purchased 40 new mattresses for children whose sleeping conditions were substandard
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.