Peru Salkantay

In September 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) upon whose slopes this coffee is grown. The area is still deemed sacred by many as it was once at the heart of the Incan empire and is a relatively short distance from the famous Incan ruins at Machu Picchu.

Five producers contributed to this lot all growing coffee above 2000 meters on the slopes of Mt Salkantay. All are members of the 300 member strong Huadquina Co-operative whose offices, mill and warehouse is in the sleepy town of Santa Teresa on the banks of the Rio Urubamba.

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+ including the coffee in this lot. This is our second year sourcing coffee direct from the Huadquina co-operative and hope it will be a relationship that will continue to thrive in the coming years.

Peru is one of the world's top ten coffee producers—number one when it comes to organic coffee—with smallholders making up the vast majority of growers. Nearly 225,000 families rely on coffee for the majority of their income.

For the first century after its introduction from Ecuador in the mid-18th century, coffee was grown primarily for domestic consumption. However exports began to grow towards the end of the century and when the Peruvian government defaulted on a loan to the British in the early 1900s it offered 2 million hectares of land as payment—much of which was promptly converted into coffee plantations which helped boost production.

Like much of Latin America, coffee production in the early days was dominated by large landowners, although land reform and other changes in the mid-20th century shifted ownership towards smaller farmers. Today Peru is the world's 9th largest exporter of coffee, and top when it comes to organic coffee, with smallholders making up the majority of growers.

Did you know?

• Coffee plantations occupy as much as 40% of farmland nationally, and up to 70% of farms situated in the Peruvian highlands.
• Peru is the world's largest exporter of organic coffee, with roughly 90,000 hectares certified organic. In addition, a large portion of the country's coffee is organic by default, which has been attributed to the number of smallholder farmers who lack the capital to invest in chemicals.
• Peru's coffee farmers are overwhelmingly small-scale, with the average producer growing coffee on just under three acres. Cooperatives can help small farmers gain access to credit facilities and larger export markets.