This elegant cup opens with a burst of tangerine followed by strawberry fondants and a spoonful of brown sugar. As it finishes, there's a little lime juice and a delicate floral note too.
This washed Marshell stood out on the cupping table for its elegance and clarity. We were cupping samples from Cajamarca with the Origin Coffee Lab team (our local exporters), looking for something really tasty to fill a gap in our Peruvian coffee offering this year.
The La Coipa district sits in the north-east corner of the Cajamarca region of Peru. It's a fantastic coffee-producing area, home to Nima Juarez (El Roble and La Quebrada), whose coffee we've enjoyed in previous years, and Kelvin Guerrero (La Esmeralda), whose coffee we're also roasting this season. Roland first visited in 2022, on his first trip to Peru, a year after we'd bought our first coffees from there.
La Mandarina runs from 1,750 to 2,000 metres above sea level and includes a small nursery of young plants for future seasons. The farm grows Caturra, Marshell and Bourbon, and this lot has been picked from the Marshell trees only. The trees flower from October to December, and the harvest runs from May to September, peaking from June to August.
Once selectively picked, as is typical in Peru, the coffee is washed. The cherries are depulped, fermented in a tank for 24 to 36 hours, washed, and dried in solar dryers for 10 to 15 days.
Mysterious Marshell
Marshell's origins are still being debated. It was first spotted in 1997 by a farmer called Grimanés Morales Lizana on her farm, La Lúcuma, in San Ignacio, Cajamarca. When a disease outbreak badly hit her plantation in 2011, that tree survived, so she propagated from it and named it drawing on the names of her family members, including Marcelino. The most widely held view is that it's a natural mutation of Bourbon. An alternative theory, backed by some genetic testing, suggests Marshell may be related to Costa Rica 95, a Catimor-group cultivar developed by ICAFE from Caturra and Timor Hybrid 832/1. No definitive published research has settled the question either way.
Marshell has a reputation for disease resistance, though nobody has tested that in proper varietal trials yet. Many Peruvian farmers were encouraged to plant Catimor varietals through the mid-2010s by cooperatives, exporters and government programmes to help combat leaf rust and other diseases. Catimors divide opinion in the coffee community: partial Robusta genetics can lead to flat, vegetal cup profiles when not handled with care. If Marshell does turn out to be a Catimor, this lot is a reminder that they don't have to.
For more on Marshell, from its 2019 Cup of Excellence win to the debate over its genetics, read our Marshell deep dive.
The world leader in organic coffee
Peru exports around 4.5 million 60kg bags of coffee a year, and it's the world's largest exporter of organic coffee. Roughly 90,000 hectares of Peruvian coffee farmland is certified organic, La Mandarina included. The main reason is that most of the country's coffee is grown by smallholders who don't have the money for chemical inputs. That leaves farms exposed to coffee leaf rust, a threat climate change keeps making worse, in a country where pesticide and fungicide use is rare.
- Country: Peru
- Region: La Coipa, San Ignacio, Cajamarca
- Producer: Nima Juarez
- Farm: El Roble
- Farm Size: 3 hectares
- Variety: Marshell (natural Bourbon mutation, 2019 Cup of Excellence Peru winner)
- Process: Washed
- Drying: Raised beds
- Altitude: 1,720 m.a.s.l.
- Producer Group: Gallitos de las Rocas
- Partner: Origin Coffee Lab (Solidario program)
- FILTER RECIPE
- Suggested method: French Press
Dose: 32g
Water: 500ml / 96 °C
Time: 4-5 mins
To find the method that suits your kit, check out our Brew Guides.
Lunch with Irene Herrera
When Origin Coffee Lab told our Green Buyer, Roland, who'd grown this washed Marshell, it was a light bulb moment. In 2022, on his first trip to Peru, he'd spent a morning with the Origin Coffee Lab team walking past coffee farms around La Coipa village. They finished up for lunch at the house of Milciades Minga, head of the Gallitos de Rocas comité, and his wife, Irene Herrera.
The house is a little larger than some of the others nearby, maybe because Milciades is also a carpenter. Coffee dries on the top floor, with the kitchen and living space below, and guinea pigs, known as cuy (pronounced coo-ee), live in a pen indoors. Irene put on a big lunch, with a fruit punch mixed in a barrel from fruit juice and yonke, the local cane sugar spirit.
Her farm, La Mandarina, is just behind the house. It's a steep climb to the top, and Roland was hard pressed to keep up with her.