Roast Style: Filter Coffee
Flavour Notes: Young Strawberry, Pomelo, White Florals
Origin: Inkawasi, La Convecion, Cusco Department
Producer: Hugo Pareja & Flor Lopez
Processing: Washed
Variety: Geisha
Altitude: 2205m
Hugo Pareja and his wife Flor Lopez are a young married couple who own and operate Bella Vista, a 2.75 hectare farm in the Cusco department in the south east of Peru.
Initially, the couple and their three children cultivated only the Typica variety; however six years ago their local cooperative gave them new seeds, without sharing the name of the varietal. After cultivation, they were impressed by the cup quality and potential for the varietal, which they now know is Geisha.
This Geisha lot was processed with a fermentation period of nine hours after depulping. The result is a cup profile that is complex, clean and sweet, which demonstrates the potential for Peru to develop as a producer of high-quality varietals with impressive cup scores. Prepared as a filter coffee, this Geisha is sweet, citrusy and lingering, with notes of young strawberry, pomelo and white florals.
STORY
Cusco has been the scene of great cultures such as the Inca, which built impressive citadels and have left its people a valuable legacy of ancestral knowledge, traditions, diverse seeds and more.
The Cusco region is also excellent for agriculture, containing more than 3000 varieties of native potatoes and other tubers that preserved to this day by local communities, recognized as heroes of the security and food sovereignty of their people. However, this land is also suitable for more tropical crops, such as coffee. Coffee from Cusco has been on the rise, and it is expected that it will continue to gain recognition for the efforts of coffee families in the area.
THE CAC INCAHUASI COOPERATIVE
Much of Hugo & Flor's success has come through membership in a local cooperative, Cooperativa Agraria Cafetalera Valle de Incahuasi (CAC Incahuasi). This coop is comprised of producers, agricultural experts and other coffee professionals, who provide feedback, training, guidance and seeds to its members.
In addition to providing the seeds would would result in this Geisha lot, the cooperative also provided the positive feedback and advice that acted as a catalyst for improving quality at Bella Vista; assistance from the cooperative included knowledge about improving selective picking, monitoring fermentation, and scoring cup quality. They have set up their own nursery of 1000 geisha seedlings, which they planted another 0.75 hectares in March of this year.
In addition to the Geisha variety, Hugo and Flor grow Typica, Bourbon, Caturra and Catimor. The farm has a production using waste products from the farm and also from raising small animals. Biodiversity and shade are provided by tree species such as pisonay, pacae, barbasco, alder and pines – these are important to cultivating new and existing varieties on the farm, and supporting local wildlife.
250g €/kg: 119,6€
