Peru | Chirimoya

Farm

Finca Chirimoya was founded in 2018 when a group of smallholders from Cajamarca, Peru, came together to improve coffee production and preserve and enrich the natural environment around them. Their joint efforts combine tradition with modern facilities, and each family is upgrading the infrastructure of their farms, while preserving and sharing the individual institutional knowledge of the trade that has been handed down from generation to generation.

Finca Chirimoya’s members produce organic certified coffee and have undertaken sustainability efforts that have enriched the soil and further highlighted the essence of the region in every batch they serve. To showcase this exceptional terroir, Finca Chirimoya has also set up its own wet mill, where it has centralised post-harvest processing and where it uses modern processing innovations to produce clean and consistent coffee that celebrates its part of Cajamarca.

Region

The Department of Cajamarca in Peru is bordered by Ecuador to the north, the Peruvian Amazon to the east, the Department of La Libertad to the south and the Departments of Lambayeque and Piura to the west. The Andean mountains stretch across Cajamarca, and the region’s fertile soil and mineral deposits mean that agriculture, dairying and mining are the region’s main economies.

In the 15th century, the Inca Empire expanded into what is now the Department of Cajamarca and established its regional capital in the city of Cajamarca, which is today the departmental capital. Cajamarca is one of the oldest cities in South America.

Coffee cultivation in the Cajamarca region is centered around the town of Jaen, high in the mountains. The western Amazon rainforest extends to and around Jaen. Cajamarca has thirteen provinces, many of which are crisscrossed by rivers that flow down from the high Andes mountains into fertile river basins.

Processing

This lot has been processed by washing. The freshly picked coffee cherries have been fermented for 24 hours in sealed containers before washing. The coffee fruit was then returned to sealed containers and fermented in an anaerobic environment for a further 36 hours. The fermented coffee was then completely washed and dried in the shade for 7-10 days.