Peru La Cueva

Yohany Peralta and her husband Eli Espinoza are the owners of a 3ha farm, split between two plots, in the village of Alto Pirias in Chirinos, San Ignacio. Yohany grows a number of varieties including bourbon, caturra, geisha and catimor and has over the last couple of years started planting more new varieties to see how they adapt to the microclimate at their farm. The farm sits at an average altitude of 1850 metres and has ideal growing conditions for quality coffee. Yohany and her husband carry out almost all of the work on the farm themselves and with the help of family who come to work for seasons. They are very strict on the quality of selection of the picking, only picking ripe cherries and then sorting the cherry on the drying beds in the first few days of drying. Yohany’s husband Eli is very passionate about processing and is always experimenting with fermentation times and types for natural and washed coffee. Most of their focus is on natural coffee as this tends to give higher cup scores for their coffees, especially when they pre-ferment in barrels or bags. This attention to detail both in cherry selection and then post harvest processing gives consistent and high quality coffee. This particular lot is made up of geisha and bourbon varieties and was fermented in cherry for 48 hours before being dried on raised beds for a period of 35 days.