BLACK RAIN - Seasonal - Peru Natural

Black Rain is our fun fruity house single origin. It changes regularly but we are always going to find something that tastes exciting and will be roasted to make a great espresso and filter coffee.

Roaster – Black Rain

Producer – Finca La Balsa

Process – Natural

Varietal – Villa Sarchi

Origin – Peru

Tasting Notes – Berries and Cacao Nibs

Notes from the importer - 

Producer Manuel Carhuajulca Olano cultivates the Villa Sarchi in this lot and other varieties at his farm, Finca La Balsa. The farm is located at 1,550 meters above sea level in Gracias a Dios, in the Amazonas region. His farm is certified Organic and his coffee is delicious with notes of black tea, berries and cacao nibs.

Villa Sarchi comes from Sarchi village in Costa Rica, where this natural mutation of a Bourbon coffee variety was first discovered. This variety is most productive at high altitudes with shade trees and regular fertilization.

Coffee is selectively handpicked and processed on Finca La Balsa. Manuel lays ripe, red cherry in parabolic solar dryers to sundry. He rakes cherry frequently to ensure even drying. It takes approximately 15 days for cherry to dry.  

Peru holds exceptional promise as a producer of high-quality coffees. The country is the largest exporter of organic Arabica coffee globally. With extremely high altitudes and fertile soils, the country’s smallholder farmers also produce some stunning specialty coffees.

Though coffee arrived in Peru in the 1700s, very little coffee was exported until the late 1800s. Until that point, most coffee produced in Peru was consumed locally. When coffee leaf rust hit Indonesia in the late 1800s, a country central to European coffee imports at the time, Europeans began searching elsewhere for their fix. Peru was a perfect option.

Between the late 1800s and the first World War, European interests invested significant resources into coffee production in Peru. However, with the advent of the two World Wars, England and other European powers became weakened and took a less colonialist perspective. When the British and other European land owners left, their land was purchased by the government and redistributed to locals. The Peruvian government repurchased the 2 million hectares previously granted to England and distributed the lands to thousands of local farmers. Many of these farmers later grew coffee on the lands they received.

Today, Peruvian coffee growers are overwhelmingly small scale. Farmers in Peru usually process their coffee on their own farms. Most coffee is Fully washed. Cherry is usually pulped, fermented and dried in the sun on raised beds or drying sheds. Drying greenhouses and parabolic beds are becoming more common as farmers pivot towards specialty markets.

After drying, coffee will then be sold in parchment to the cooperative. Producers who are not members of a cooperative will usually sell to a middleman.

The remoteness of farms combined with their small size means that producers need either middlemen or cooperatives to help get their coffee to market. Cooperative membership protects farmers greatly from exploitation and can make a huge difference to income from coffee. Nonetheless, currently only around 15-25% of smallholder farmers have joined a coop group.