In July 2025 we made our second origin trip to Peru to source beans from the Huadquina Cooperative in the remote town of Santa Teresa in the Sacred Valley. The valley winds for around 60km from the ancient Incan city of Cusco into the Andean highlands. It follows the spectacular Urubamba river and is surrounded by jagged peaks that include the fearsome, snow topped mountain Salkantay (6,271m). The valley is still deemed sacred by many as it was once at the heart of the Incan kingdom and is a relatively short distance from Machu Picchu.
The Huadquina Co-operative has a dry mill on the edge of Santa Teresa where we cupped samples from this most recent harvest. The co-operative works with over 300 producers and astonishingly most of them are producing certified organic coffees. The quality of the coffee is very high with some Cup of Excellence winners and many of the lots scoring 86+. We were looking to secure a solid coffee that works well both in our Red Stag Espresso and as a single origin in our True North retail coffee which raises money for Trees for Life. We love the notes of cherry, honey and citrus that are typical of coffees from this region.
Last year we worked with Huadquina to source coffee from a single producer, Armando Sanchez Ramirez. We met his daughter Diana at the Cooperative’s dry mill where she is in charge of collating, sample roasting and cupping the coffees as they come in from the farms. Diana is also a Q grader and a brilliant cupper. With a little gentle persuasion she agreed to set up a visit with Armando to his farm less than an hour away from Santa Teresa on a bumpy dirt road that runs through forest alongside the Rio Salkantay. We found him standing by his low house in a bright yellow football shirt. His surrounding land is densely covered with coffee bushes and he has built his own drying patio outside his home, which at the time of our visit was full of freshly milled, drying green coffee.
Armando was very proud of his recent Cup of Excellence award laid out on a table inside his home where his wife was preparing a meal on an open fire. An extended family of guinea pigs scuttled nervously around the corner of the kitchen floor, facing up to an uncertain future (Guinea Pig, or Cuy as it is called here, is considered a great delicacy in these parts and is an important source of nutrition). Back outside Armando showed me both the Red Bourbon and Gesha varietals of Arabica that together produced such an exceptional True North coffee for us last year. Later in the afternoon his neighbour Gloria, who also produces coffee, showed us how fresh coffee cherries are traditionally hulled and roasted in an incredibly labour intensive (lots of blowing) process on an open fire using a traditional Quechua earthenware pot called a K’analla. For all the rustic preparation the coffee was delicious!
This year the pressure was on to secure greens as we arrived towards the end of the harvest and much of the coffee (including Armando’s) had already been snapped up. Negotiations in this part of South America also tend to be drawn out with a lot beating around the bush over extended lunches before finally settling down to the brass tacks of price. Producers are also driving hard bargins at the moment as green coffee prices are very high. Although hard to accommodate with our margins it does seem fairer that they are getting higher prices after many years of struggling to get paid enough for their amazing beans.
In the end the final deal was made via WhatsApp just before we jumped on a plane back home from Lima, putting in motion to a process of logistics and transport links to get delicious coffee from Peru direct to our Roastery in Scotland. Look out for an update as soon as this coffee lands at the Roastery in a couple of month’s time. We very much hope that this only the second year of many future years working with Huadquina as we continue to strive to build long term relationships with producers and co-operatives in Peru and beyond.
My lasting memory of this trip is a slightly surreal one. To reach the Sacred Valley we had to drive through the bleak Abra de Malaga (4,330 metres above sea level) mountain pass which was freshly sugared with wet snow. Here, short of breath and shivering with cold, we stumbled on a speciality café (El Abra) complete with vinyl playing on decks, a blazing fire and rustic wooden furniture. The owner, a young coffee aficionado, served up a delicious single origin Peruvian flat white in a ceramic mug while explaining how he had engineered his espresso machine to even operate at such high altitude. The almond croissant he served me with his own home-made marmalade from jungle fruits was the best I have ever tasted. It was the perfect example of how coffee can create connection and community, in this case stretched across almost 10,000 kilometres from the Sacred Valley of Peru to Highlands of Scotland.
