Organic Raul Ccallo, Peru

Nestled in the Yanatile Valley in the Department of Cusco in the south of Peru, Valle Inca functions as a producer group, where Prudencio Vargas Saenz, who created and runs the group, buys parchment from farmers, reinvesting premiums in the community’s infrastructure to help them continue to improve quality. Prudencio, who lives in nearby Calca and brings the benefits of his former experience as an agricultural loan officer, used to operate outside the aegis of a collective, but after years of running Valle Inca informally, he formalized the organization this year in order to gain organic certification, Fair Trade certification, and the ability to export on his own.

Member-wise, Valle Inca is growing fast, with 101 farmers currently in the fold. It’s no surprise thatmore and more farmers want to work with Valle Inca; in the community, Prudencio is known for his honesty, trustworthiness, dedication, and drive to invest and reinvest in his community, genuinely engaging their goals and concerns. He also pays higher prices than farmers had access to prior to the founding of Valle Inca, which has helped to improve quality as well as overall community health over time.

Leaders like Prudencio are rare, and the quality of connection between leadership and producer shines through in the cup. At their best, coffees from Valle Inca display elegant honeyed florals, crisp red apple, and a pleasant tannic quality like oolong tea.

One of the things that makes Valle Inca so exciting is that there’s still so much untapped potential there. There are many more hills and mountain peaks where producers we haven’t yet connected with are growing great coffee, and Prudencio is working hard to find them and bring them into the specialty market.

This lot represents the work of a single producer Raul Huillca Ccallo. One of the highest altitude farms we work with, Raul grows hardy Typica variety coffee at a staggering 2100 MASL. Maturation of fruit takes a long time, and the harvest window is small. The picked cherries are processed at the farm in a traditional washed manner. Up here, with the cooler temperatures, fermentation takes a full 46 hours to complete, and the drying of the washed parchment takes a nice slow 3 weeks depending on the weather. The final result is a coffee that is juicy and complex, a wild cousin of the Yanatile offerings we’ve sourced in the past. Look for juicy rainier cherries, apple cider, and ripe watermelon, paired with floral vanilla and baking spices.