Peru Perfiles Cooperative

This fully-washed lot comes to us from the Perfiles Cooperative, which was formed in 2019 to organize smallholder farmers in the districts of Chontalí, Pomahuaca, Sallique, and Jaen. There are currently 219 members working with the coop, all located in areas that produce excellent quality coffees.

History of Coffee In Peru

In 1897 when the Belgian consul in Lima Peru wrote a report that “the coffee of Peru is delicious,” there was every reason to believe he was right. That same year, coffee exports had reached well over 20,000 bags, almost triple the 7,000 bags exported in 1894. But the turn of the century would prove to be a peak for that generation of Peruvian coffee exports. By 1913, exports had dropped back down to 9,000 bags. It would have been difficult to imagine on the eve of WWI that for most of the next 100 years Peru would be numbered among the top 10 coffee producing countries in the world, and even rise to the number 5 spot a few times. Looking back, it's not only easy to understand why, but easy to imagine increasing success in producing specialty coffee as a leading supplier of organic coffee.

Growing Coffee In Peru

Peru is made up of a wide variety of landscapes, from long beaches to high mountains, from the desert to the largest rainforest. In the north, the second highest mountain range, the Andes, goes through Cajamarca department and converges with the Amazon, creating complex and diverse orographies and microclimates. Cajamarca’s inter-Andean valleys have hosted coffee crops for more than 200 years and concentrate almost 43% of the total Peruvian coffee production, not only because of its vast lands but because of an ancient coffee tradition that goes back to the XVIII century, when the first coffee crops were brought in and started to be nurtured by the many generations of producers in the region. Coffee has been part of their lives for so long that their inhabitants’ experiences and learnings are inextricably linked to it.

As an origin, Peru has all the conditions necessary to produce world-class coffee: high elevation, prominence of good coffee varieties, and a quality-focused movement among smallholder growers, especially in cooperatives utilizing organic husbandry. It's all very encouraging for the future of specialty coffee in Peru.