Lemon and lime lead the way – crisp, bright and refreshing – with a twist of green apple keeping things lively. Sweet meringue on the finish rounds it out into an elegant, clean cup.
We first visited Einer in 2022, and we've bought coffee from his farm every year since. This year we cupped several lots from El Cedro and picked two from the table because they taste so different from each other. This one is classic Einer: bright and citrusy, like the lots we've had from him before. The second, contrasting lot lands later this year. Taste them side by side and you'll see how the smallest differences at origin show up in your mug.
Einer Saldivar's farm, El Cedro, is one of the remotest places we've visited. Roland, our Green Buyer, has made the trip to see Einer and his wife a few times now, and it's a trek even for someone who visits coffee farms for a living. From the nearest working airport it's 8 hours by car to the town of Jaén, then about an hour and a half to the local receiving village, another 30 minutes to Einer's house, and finally a steep 45-minute climb up the hill to find him out on the farm. Worth every step.
Einer inherited the farm from his parents, and nearly all his neighbours are cousins or extended family. The land matters to him. At around 2,000 m.a.s.l., growing traditional Bourbon, he had everything you'd want for great coffee. What he didn't have was a good buyer or access to agronomic advice, so the farm had plenty of untapped potential.
That changed through Origin Coffee Lab and their receiving station in Einer's village. Without them we'd never have tasted his coffee, and he wouldn't have had the support to start improving his agronomy and build a more sustainable farm.
In August 2023, Roland and Einer talked through problems with the farm's processing equipment. The depulper, fermentation tank and processing station, the kit that prepares harvested coffee before it goes to the dry mill, all needed work. The tank was cracked and hard to clean, the depulper was misaligned, and the rest was in disrepair. A large share of the harvest missed specialty grade and was sold as commercial coffee, at a much lower price. Origin Coffee Lab coordinated the repairs using local suppliers and labour, and Ozone covered the cost.
At harvest, Einer's donkey carries most of the picked cherry down the hill to the wet mill at his house. Both coffees we bought from El Cedro this year are Bourbon, and both were washed at that mill. The only difference is when in the harvest each was processed. Einer is methodical. He follows the same steps for every picking. But no two days are the same. Cherries vary depending on where on the farm they grew, because sun, drainage and wind all change how they ripen. Then the weather during processing plays its part: a slightly faster ferment or a longer drying stage shifts the final cup.
Farms like Einer's are the backbone of Peruvian coffee, and they have been for a long time. Coffee arrived in Peru from Ecuador, its northern neighbour, in the mid-18th century. Its international trade took off much later, and the reason is debt. By the 1880s Peru owed British bondholders huge sums from railway loans raised in 1869, 1870 and 1872. Under the Grace Contract, those creditors formed the Peruvian Corporation in London and took on Peru's railways along with around two million hectares of land. Roughly a quarter of that was farmed, which helped kick-start Peru's coffee exports in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Early production sat on large estates owned by wealthy European families. Workers who migrated in to farm them began growing coffee independently on the open land across Cajamarca, Junín, Cusco and San Martín. As the big landholders left, small-scale growers became the majority, and land reforms in the 1950s and 60s pushed coffee cultivation further. Today, small-scale and Indigenous farmers grow most of Peru's coffee.
Around 425,000 hectares of Peru are planted with coffee, and half of it grows in Cajamarca, where El Cedro sits. The average farm is just under 3 hectares, about four rugby fields. Smallholders face familiar problems: getting credit, getting coffee milled, running production efficiently. Cooperatives help by pooling resources and spreading risk, and much of Peru's coffee is collected from small farms then milled and sold through them, some with up to 2,000 members. Better traceability in recent years means we can buy more single-producer lots like this one, taste the differences between Peru's regions, and put growers like Einer front and centre.
- Country: Peru
- Region: Cajamarca
- District: Colasay
- Producer: Einer Saldivar
- Farm: El Cedro
- Elevation: 2,000 m.a.s.l.
- Variety: Bourbon
- Processing method: Washed