Organic Raul Ccallo, Peru

Origin

• 🇵🇪 Peru· Cusco

Tasting notes

Nestled in the Yanatile Valley in the Department of Cusco in the south of Peru, Valle Inca functions as a producer group, where Prudencio Vargas Saenz, who created and runs the group, buys parchment from farmers, reinvesting premiums in the community’s infrastructure to help them continue to improve quality. Prudencio, who lives in nearby Calca and brings the benefits of his former experience as an agricultural loan officer, used to operate outside the aegis of a collective, but after years of running Valle Inca informally, he formalized the organization this year in order to gain organic certification, Fair Trade certification, and the ability to export on his own. Member-wise, Valle Inca is growing fast, with 101 farmers currently in the fold. It’s no surprise thatmore and more farmers want to work with Valle Inca; in the community, Prudencio is known for his honesty, trustworthiness, dedication, and drive to invest and reinvest in his community, genuinely engaging their goals and concerns. He also pays higher prices than farmers had access to prior to the founding of Valle Inca, which has helped to improve quality as well as overall community health over time. Leaders like Prudencio are rare, and the quality of connection between leadership and producer shines through in the cup. At their best, coffees from Valle Inca display elegant honeyed florals, crisp red apple, and a pleasant tannic quality like oolong tea. One of the things that makes Valle Inca so exciting is that there’s still so much untapped potential there. There are many more hills and mountain peaks where producers we haven’t yet connected with are growing great coffee, and Prudencio is working hard to find them and bring them into the specialty market. This lot represents the work of a single producer Raul Huillca Ccallo. One of the highest altitude farms we work with, Raul grows hardy TypicaTypicaThe oldest cultivated arabica lineage, ancestor of most Latin American coffee. Low yield, clean and sweet cup; the baseline other varieties are measured against. varietyVariety (cultivar)The botanical subtype of the coffee plant — Gesha, Bourbon, SL28 — analogous to grape varieties in wine. A major driver of cup character alongside origin and process. coffee at a staggering 2100 MASL. Maturation of fruit takes a long time, and the harvest window is