Peru: Einer Saldivar - Cansaboca (Organic)

Fresh red apple is balanced by a heap of soft demerara sugar on the finish and aftertaste of this cup. As it cools, the apple softens with a delicate satsuma coming through alongside it.

We first visited Einer in 2022 and have bought coffee from his farm every year since. This year we cupped several lots from El Cedro and chose two, because they finish so far apart in the cup. This one is certified Organic and grown on a lower plot than Einer’s main farm. The contrasting lot is available here. Taste them side by side and you’ll find out how much the tiniest differences at origin change what ends up in your mug.

Getting to El Cedro

Einer Saldivar’s farm, El Cedro, sits in one of the remotest areas we’ve ever visited. Roland (our Green Buyer) has been up a few times to see Einer and his wife, and it’s quite the trek, even for someone who visits coffee farms regularly. It takes 8 hours by car from the nearest working airport to the town of Jaén, roughly 1.5 hours from Jaén to the local receiving village, another 30 minutes to Einer’s house, and then a steep 45-minute climb to find him out on his farm.

Einer inherited the farm from his parents, and nearly all his neighbours are cousins or extended family. At around 2,000 m.a.s.l. and planted with traditional Bourbon, El Cedro has the altitude and variety to produce great coffee. What it needed was a good buyer and access to agronomic information.

Origin Coffee Lab changed that. It’s an exporter based in Jaén, founded by Alex Julca and José Rivera, with a receiving station in Einer’s local village. Its Solidario programme gives producers ongoing training in farm management, post-harvest technique and quality assessment. Origin Coffee Lab is how Einer’s delicious coffee reached us, and the training and support it provides are how he’s been able to start improving his agronomic practices.

Investments at origin

Einer is always asking questions about best practice and what’s working on bigger farms. In August 2023, Roland talked through the farm’s processing equipment with him during a visit. The depulper, fermentation tank and processing station (the equipment that prepares harvested coffee before it’s sent to the dry mill) needed attention. The fermentation tank was cracked and hard to clean, and the depulper was misaligned. A large share of the harvest couldn’t reach the specialty grade Einer’s farm can produce, so it was sold as commercial coffee at a much lower price.

Einer asked for our help, and we funded a new depulper and fermentation tank through our sustainability project. Origin Coffee Lab coordinated the work, using local suppliers for materials and labour. The new equipment makes his coffee better and more consistent.

Same but different

At harvest, Einer uses a donkey to carry most of the picked cherry down the hill to the wet mill at his house. Both of this year’s El Cedro coffees are Bourbon, and both were washed at that wet mill. The only difference is when in the harvest each was processed. Einer is methodical and follows the same steps for every picking, but each day brings something different. The trees being picked change, and so does the weather. More sun, better drainage or less wind in one part of the farm shifts how the cherries ripen. Then any small change in conditions during processing affects how the coffee ferments and dries, and a slightly faster ferment or a longer drying stage shows up in the cup.

After visiting Einer at his house, we loaded the coffee he had ready for delivery into the back of our pick-up truck and drove down to Colasay, to the local office of our exporter, Origin Coffee Lab. Mercy Fernandez works from this satellite office three days a week, and when a producer like Einer delivers coffee, she samples it. The coffee is hulled, checked for physical defects, roasted and cupped, and everything is weighed. Then the producer waits to hear the results and the price they set.

Once Mercy had checked the other lot details for Einer’s two coffees, she and Roland cupped them together. Both were great, and quite different in profile. Mercy explained that one lot came from a different bit of land, about 50m lower than the main plot of El Cedro. Roland and Einer had walked past that small area on their way up to the farm earlier that day. Roland agreed we’d take the lot.

Then came an important question: what should it be called? It took Mercy and Einer a minute to remember the name they’d given the plot, “Cansaboca”. Translated directly, it means “tired mouth”. Roland was a little confused until Mercy explained that it’s the name of a local fruit, so called for a sticky, dense texture that makes eating it hard work.

Coffee in Peru

Coffee reached Peru from its northern neighbour Ecuador in the mid-18th century. Exports took off in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, after British bondholders formed the Peruvian Corporation in 1890 to settle Peru’s railway debts and took on large areas of highland land, part of which was planted with coffee.

Production began on large landholdings owned mostly by wealthy European elites. Workers migrated from other parts of Peru to labour on those farms, and many went on to farm independently on the abundant land across Cajamarca, Junín, Cusco and San Martín. As larger landholders left, small-scale producers became the majority. Land reforms and government programmes in the 1950s and 60s encouraged coffee cultivation further, and small-scale, indigenous farmers now grow most of the country’s coffee.

Today, around 425,000 hectares of Peru are planted with coffee, mostly in Cajamarca, where half of all Peruvian coffee is grown. Small farms are the norm, averaging just under 3 hectares. That structure leaves many producers dealing with limited access to credit, mill processing and efficient production management. Cooperatives such as El Horcon Comite pool resources and share risk, which small farms need to run profitable businesses. Much of Peru’s coffee is collected from small farms and combined to be milled and marketed through cooperatives, some with up to 2,000 farmers.

Better traceability in recent years means we can now buy more single-producer lots like this one. They show the regional terroirs of a country with an official 28 microclimates, and they let us name the small producers behind the coffee.

Farm information

• Country: Peru
• Department: Cajamarca
• Province: Jaén
• District: Colasay
• Village: Bomboca
• Producer: Einer Saldivar
• Farm: El Cedro (Cansaboca plot)
• Altitude: 2,000 m.a.s.l.
• Variety: Bourbon
• Processing method: Washed
• Certification: Organic
• Exporter: Origin Coffee Lab
• Relationship since: 2022

Tasting notes: Red apple, demerara sugar, satsuma.

Cup of Excellence Cupping Scores

• Clean Cup: (1-8): 6.5
• Sweetness: (1-8): 6.5
• Acidity: (1-8): 6.5
• Mouthfeel: (1-8): 6
• Flavour: (1-8): 6.5
• Aftertaste: (1-8): 6
• Balance: (1-8): 6.5
• Overall: (1-8): 7
• Correction: (+36): +36
• Total (max 100): 87

If you'd like to find out more about how we score coffees, make sure to read our blog post “What Do Coffee Cupping Scores Actually Mean?” and if you'd like to try cupping yourself, we've got a guide to that too! What is Coffee Cupping.

Medium dark - take this coffee through the gap and let it develop a little while it's in the gap, before pushing through to the edge of second as the roast finishes.