Roasted for Espresso | Fudge, plum, honeysuckle
Fudgy sweet, with plum and honeysuckle top notes. With milk we’re tasting frangipane, pear tart and honeycomb.
We’re excited to welcome back into the range a lot of Agustin’s organic Bourbon, hailing from Huaynapata in Cusco, Peru.
The Producer
Agustin and his family are living very remotely, in an area called Huaynapata in the Yanatile district near Calca, a small town in Peru’s Cusco region. They have been here since 1975. To visit him on his farm we had to drive over some mountains at 4,500 metres, before descending to 2,150 metres where his farm, Finca Progreso, is situated. Due to the remoteness of the farm, when José or any team member from Valle Inca, the association with whom Agustin is partnering, wishes to visit or collect coffee, they must first visit Quebrada. There, at the local radio station, they transmit a message to Agustin as they have no other means of communication; hopefully he's within earshot of the radio! Luckily our trip was pre-planned, so Agustin knew to expect us, greeting us on arrival. He and his wife have a basic dwelling without plumbing, but solar panels to generate electricity and a wood burning oven in the kitchen.
With mineral-rich black volcanic soil his 3-hectare farm boasts incredible agricultural conditions for coffee. Predominantly growing Red and Yellow Bourbon, Agustin explained that coffee produced above 1,650m in Peru sees both Roya and Broca become much less prevalent. Rise above 1,850m, however, and these two major threats are, thankfully, all but non-existent. However, humidity is an issue in Huaynapata, so Agustin lets his trees grow tall, pruning back any growth on the first metre of the trunk to allow better ventilation between the trees, reducing the chance of moulds. The resulting willowy three-metre trees are too tall to harvest normally, so workers, armed with a rope and hook, bend the trees as they pick. They have the same workers returning year after year at Finca Progreso, with only 5 or so needed during the peak of the season.
Their Approach
In processing their harvested coffee cherries, they first float in water to skim off the less dense fruit. Fed through a manual disc depulper to remove the seed from the fruit, the depulped parchment is then sieved to remove any coffee cherry skins. Experimenting in their approach to fermentation, they place the mucilage laden parchment coffee into GrainPro sacks and then seal in a plastic barrel. A tube allows for degassing, as the microbiome breaking down the coffee's mucilage produces CO2 during this stage. After 24-36 hours, the fermented coffee is washed before being put out to dry on their tiered, raised beds in a ventilated secadore (solar dryer). As well as coffee the family are growing passionfruit, chirimoyas and rocoto chilli peppers.
The Association
In 2018, our first year buying coffee through Valle Inca, the group had around 100 members. Thanks to word of mouth, with producers telling their neighbours of the premium prices that they were able to receive having been able to access a more discerning coffee market through the association, the group now works with around 300 producers in the Cusco region and have recently expanded their operations to include Puno. All the members are working organically and are certified as such via the Valle Inca group. For a member to join, there needs to be a baseline of quality met, dictated in part by altitude and the type of varieties planted, but ultimately it is down to the desire of each member to improve their quality through hard work. The group provide agronomical advice and training as well as pre-financing, so the farmer members are supported in multiple ways. Several of their members reliably place well in Peru’s Cup of Excellence competition.
Origin: Huaynapata, Yanatile, Calca, Cusco, Peru
Farm: Finca Progreso
Processing: Organically grown, hand-harvested and manually depulped. Fermented in airlocked barrels for 36hrs, fully washed, dried on raised beds in a ventilated polytunnel.
Cultivars: Red & Yellow Bourbon
Altitude: 2,150 metres
Harvest: August, 2024
Arrival: January, 2025
Roasted for Espresso | Marmalade, honey cake, dates
A warming espresso with notes of dates and marmalade. Look for brown sugar and cardamom in the finish.
Please join us in thanking Aime Gahizis and the smallholder coffee producers of Karongi as we mark twelve years of working with delicious coffee from Gitesi washing station.
The Producer
Aime is always hospitable and positive when we visit Rwanda. We stay in close contact throughout the year to hear how things are going at the washing station. As well as buying and processing coffee cherries grown by the smallholder farmers in the surrounding hillsides, the Gahizi family also tend to their own small farm. They have a wormery which they use to make an organic fertiliser spray, which also helps to limit the spread of leaf rust. Every year they are buying more land and planting more coffee, with over 20,000 trees now producing on their own farm. Their mature trees produce an average of 5kg fruit per year but can produce upwards of 20kg.
Cows kept at the station provide milk and fertiliser for their own trees, and through Aime’s social work they donate dozens of cows each year to farmers in the local area, as well as spray pumps for fertiliser. They also donate seedlings from their nursery of over 10,000 plants to neighbouring farmers and run workshops to teach them about tending to other food crops as well as coffee.
The Washing Station
The water used for producing washed coffees comes from a natural spring. After being used for processing the coffee it becomes full of particulates and enzymes, needing to be filtered before being reintroduced into the local water table. At Gitesi they collect water from the washing channels as well as run off from the mounds of coffee pulp (which breaks down to provide more compost for their trees) and first hold it in a tank. The mucilage settles and is separated off to be added to organic fertiliser whilst the water passes through lime and EM (effective microorganisms). Subsequent stages use molasses, holding tanks, charcoal and fine gravel to filter the water before it finally passes through a bed of vetiver reeds, re-oxygenating it. This filtration system is highly advanced and is held up as an exemplary model for other washing stations to work towards.
A couple of years ago they built new washing and grading channels at the station as part of their renovations. Typically they will process around 80% of their coffee volumes as washed coffee, with 20% naturals being done on a case by case basis for certain clients.
Their Approach
Aime sees the work at Gitesi as much more than simple crop husbandry and coffee production, doing amazing work within the neighbouring community. We asked him for a message that we could pass along to the people drinking coffee from Gitesi and he replied with the following, that we haven’t the heart to shorten:
“The Gitesi Sector is the land of our grandfathers, it’s where even my father was born. But as you know, because of Rwandan history we grew up outside our country, and we came back in 1994 after the genocide and liberation war. Upon our return we have found in our land no one among our family members, all of them were killed in the genocide. We are now living and working with those who killed (or their children) our relatives. What motivates us is the reconciliation between the survivors of genocide of those who participated in genocide in our sector, now we are working together at the washing station, sharing everything in peace. Our plan is to continue changing the lives of our people at Gitesi both socially and economically.”
Origin: Karongi, Western Province, Rwanda
Produced by: Aime Gahizis
Processing: Floated & eco-pulped, dry fermented, fully washed and soaked, dried on raised beds.
Variety: Red Bourbon & RAB C15
Altitude: 1,750 to 2,000 metres
Harvest: June, 2024
Arrival: December, 2024