Tag Archives: Terry Slavin

The Curibamba Project, One Year Later (Reposted)

Curibamba Coffee

I’m reposting this from last fall, the harvest begins again soon for this year, it’s so exciting! More details to follow…

This was our second year with the Curibamba Coffee project in Peru. It was gratifying to see the farmers again, to share the pictures of happy customers, and most of all to cup this years’ crop & see that the quality had increased about a full point score on average for pretty much everyone.

In August, I was interviewed by Terry Slavin of The Guardian newspaper in London. Terry specializes on articles relating to sustainability and projects that help empower farmers and small communities in the developing world. She was interested in the Curibamba Coffee Project & had heard of our work there. Here’s the article:

Cafe Curibamba: Peruvian farmers’ co-op makes better coffee – and better lives

In the cloud forests high in the central Peruvian Andes, a group of local farmers are drying their coffee beans in solar-powered plastic tents instead of the age-old method of drying them on tarpaulin sheets spread out along the roadside, where they can easily be contaminated by insects, pollution from passing cars, and humidity.

Inside a community hall in the town of San Juan de Uchubamba, David Torres Bisetti, a coffee roaster and cafe owner from Lima, is holding a workshop, introducing these farmers to the taste of their own coffee for the very first time, and explaining the finer points of aroma and acidity.

More than a quarter of people in these remote mountain communities are extremely poor but, since 2012, 180 coffee farming families in the Jauja and Concepción areas near to Chanchamayo province in Peru’s central Junín region – known as one of the main places where coffee is produced – have been supported to transform the way they work. After producing coffee in the traditional way for generations, they are joining together to form a co-operative to improve the quality of their product – and with it their life prospects. Continue reading The Curibamba Project, One Year Later (Reposted)