Description

This is a new Falcon Coffees Peru lot for 2022. Kessia is an undergraduate student that helps producers from the Luya Province (Luya is located in the south-west part of the dpt of Amazonas) to gather and deliver the coffee at Falcon warehouse. Her parents own a small area of land on which they have grown coffee since 2007. Kessia is planning on taking over the operational and agronomical activities of the farm after she finishes her degree. Varieties planted in the farm are catimor, typica, pache and bourbon. Pickers will harvest the cherries, then move them to the water tank to remove any floaters. Cherry is then depulped and fermented in plastic bags for 28-36 hours. Afterward, the parchment is moved to dry patios for 12-15 days before the transfer to the warehouse. Alongside Honduras, Peru has historically been regarded as the discount Latin American origin of unremarkable and often unreliable quality. This reputation and its accompanying price discount are the results of supply chains focused on large volumes based on aggregated quality, built to serve roasters seeking value over remarkable coffee. This happens at the expense of Peruvian farmers who don’t reap the rewards of higher income through improved quality. We believe that Peru has the potential to match up on quality to any of its origin counterparts in Latin America. We set out to prove this. The altitude of the Andes combined with rich volcanic soils and tropical rainfall means that Peru has the ideal topography and climate for producing high quality Arabica coffee. We identified the problem as post-harvest processing. Farmers had received little to no training on the chemistry and precision required to maximize the quality of their coffees. We realized that if we provided training that demanded attention to detail, we would need to offer a financial incentive to reward those farmers who made the effort. In 2018 Falcon Peru SARL was registered as an export company and we opened a small warehouse with QC lab in the northern coffee town of Jaen, Cajamarca. Farmers bring their dry parchment to the warehouse for quality analysis, some tasting their own coffees for the first time. They receive a cup score and an offer price immediately, which they can accept or refuse. In 2019 and 2020, on average Falcon paid double the commercial rate for parchment in Jaen. In 2018 we established Falcon Coffees Peru with an initial intake of partnerships with 35 farmers. These farmers were selected based on their potential and willingness to produce outstanding qualities, and most were based in an area called Huabal. As of 2022 Falcon Coffees Peru is 275 producers across, 15 districts in Cajamarca, 3 producer associations, 10 full-time employees, 50% female. In 2022 we focussed on improving our operations and technical activities. This has allowed us to increase volumes and develop the in-house facilities at our dedicated warehouse space. As many smallholder producers lack on-farm drying infrastructure to dry their coffee properly, we also installed additional drying facilities close to the warehouse to enable producers to achieve optimum moisture levels and lock in cup quality that would otherwise be lost where coffee cannot be dried properly. In the Autumn of 2022, Peru was selected as the first origin at which to begin conducting in-depth field research into carbon emission at farm level as part of our Carbon Project. (https://www.falconcoffees.com/beginning-the-knowledge-transfer-project/) From the end of October, we will continue training producers on best practices for fertilizer application as well as assist producers in diversifying varietals on their farms. As Falcon controls the supply chain from farmer to your door, these coffees qualify for our Blueprint Project label, where we can provide economic transparency data for every household that provided you with the coffee you purchased.

– Falcon Cofee

Additional information