Quaffee is a real specialist in sourcing and roasting exceptional Latin American coffee. This Peruvian single origin is a particularly special example. While Peru has many of the right ingredients for producing top quality speciality coffee including climate, heritage and production volumes, in practice it sadly does not export large quantities. This is mostly due to the fact that most Peruvian coffee farmers operate on a tiny scale and without access to the infrastructure and resources required to produce speciality quality. Caravela, Quaffee's distribution partner who sourced this coffee, is helping to change that by assisting quality-oriented coffee growers in Peru to find buyers for their lots.

Caravela has set up two direct purchasing points for coffee, one of which is in Cajamarca, where this coffee came from. By working with the ~700 smallscale coffee farmers it has identified in Peru, Caravela is able to combine harvests into lots for export, finding buyers like Quaffee and providing us the opportunity to taste some of Peru's best coffee.

Phaedon's tasting notes

This coffee is deliciously classic. There's nothing bright, zingy or effervescent about it. Quite the contrary, it's sweet, full-bodied and nutty. It's the kind of coffee we all used to get excited about before processing methods went all experimental. It's the kind of coffee that your not-so-into-coffee friends would actually appreciate. It's just plain tasty.

Diving a little deeper, I found that the sweetness in this coffee often reminded me of floral honey. There were occasional hints of citrus, as well as stone fruit, but they were subtle. I also found a chocolate finish in my moka pot brew.

Speaking of moka pot brews, that was one of my favourite ways to enjoy this coffee, though I also made a tremendous AeroPress and MoccaMaster batch brew with it.

Quaffee's notes

• Characteristics: Nutty with stone fruit sweetness and lingering cocoa. The mouthfeel is medium to full.
• Roast used: Medium charge with a little bit of soaking then what we like to call a bump and kick roast with a 45sec development time.
• Our brews:
• Espresso: 1:2.2
• AeroPress: 17g:200g
• Plunger: 48g:600g
• Pour over/filter: 18g:300g

Coffee details

• Owner: Around 300 growers
• Typical Farm Area: 2-3 ha
• Region: San Ignacia, Cajamarca
• Country: Peru
• Processing: Full Washed, with long fermentation. Dried on patios or covered beds, on each producer’s farm.
• Species/Varietal: Arabica (Caturra, Bourbon, Typica)
• Altitude grown: 1,600 – 2,100 masl
• Packaging: Grainpro in Hessian

Quaffee transparency information

• Sourced from: Direct from Caravela
• FOB price: US$4.20 per pound
• Cupping score: 84.5
• Producer / organisation: El Guayacan
• Lot size bought: 2 x 69kg bags
• Relationship: Our relationship with Caravela goes back to 2008, this is our first coffee from El Guayacan