PERU - ELI ESPINOZA | Natural

Eli Espinoza is the owner of 4 hectares of coffee in the village of Las Pirias in Chirinos. Eli has a few parcels of land spread across the village, some planted mostly with typica, others with caturra and bourbon. Eli processes all his coffee at his house, which sits at 1800masl and his farms are all between 1800 and 2000masl. Eli came to the area as a teenager looking for work on farms, and he started out picking coffee in the village. After a while he was able to buy his own land, a house and started working to produce his own coffee.

The coffee was washed and floated, before undergoing a skin drying process under shade for one day. The coffee was then moved to a solar drying tent, where it dried under controlled conditions for 45 days.

Falcon Coffees Peru

In 2018 Falcon Peru SARL was registered as an export company and we opened a small warehouse with a QC lab in the northern coffee town of Jaen, Cajamarca. Farmers bring their dry parchment to the warehouse for quality analysis, some tasting their own coffees for the first time. They receive a cup score and an offer price immediately, which they can accept or refuse. In 2019 and 2020, on average Falcon paid double the commercial rate for parchment in Jaen.

In 2018 we established Falcon Coffees Peru with an initial intake of partnerships with 35 farmers. These farmers were selected based on their potential and willingness to produce outstanding qualities, and most were based in an area called Huabal.

As of 2022 Falcon Coffees Peru is:
· 275 producers across 15 districts in Cajamarca.
· 3 producer associations.
· 10 full time employees, 50% female.

In 2022 we focused on improving our operations and technical activities. This has allowed us to increase volumes and develop the in-house facilities at our dedicated warehouse space. As many smallholder producers lack on-farm drying infrastructure to dry their coffee properly, we also installed additional drying facilities close to the warehouse to enable producers to achieve optimum moisture levels and lock in cup quality that would otherwise be lost where coffee cannot be dried properly. In the Autumn of 2022, Peru was selected as the first origin at which to begin conducting in depth field research into carbon emission at farm level as part of our Carbon Project. (https://www.falconcoffees.com/beginning-the-knowledge-transfer-project/) From the end of October, we will continue training producers on best practice for fertiliser application as well as assist producers in diversifying varietals on their farms. As Falcon controls the supply chain from farmer to your door, these coffees qualify for our Blueprint Project label, where we can provide economic transparency data for every household that provided you with the coffee you purchased.