Peru Farmgate Cajamarca Huabal Heiner Gonzales Delgado Caturra - 31081 - 30.0 kg Box/Vacuum Pack - SPOT SEAFORTH

Heiner Gonzales Delgado’s tiny caturra lot won 12th place out of 94 farmers competing in Cajamarca’s regional specialty coffee competition. We cupped the top 20 submissions via Origin Coffee Lab, one of the buyers participating in the contest’s final auction, and we loved Heiner’s coffee so much we decided to outbid the locals—and here it is.

Welcome to Cajamarca

In Peru by far the bulk of coffee production comes from small farms owned and managed by people who have for many years followed organic farm management practice attuned to their cultural connection with the land. Cajamarca, specifically, with its remote mountain ranges that span from the mid-Andes to the Amazonian foothills to the east, is arguably Peru’s most prolific region for specialty coffee.

Producers in Cajamarca typically cultivate coffee on just a few acres of land intercropped with shade trees, fruits and vegetables. Small producers are often very careful about picking and sorting their cherry prior to depulping, fermenting, washing, and drying the coffee, all on personal equipment and on personal property. While producers design farm management and post-harvest solutions to fit their varying needs, they also need a strong business alliance to bring their coffee to the international market and earn fair prices, regardless if the coffees are blended or sold independently.

Expo Cajamarca & Finca El Zapotillo

Expo Cajamarca is a regional convention aimed at boosting participation in the specialty coffee sector. It includes cultural festivities and an agro-industrial exhibition, as well as competitions for baristas, coffee photographers, and of course coffee producers, for whom there are multiple rounds of cupping and a final auction for the top 20 submissions. Expo Cajamarca was conceived in 2021; 2022 was its second year.

This particular lot of coffee is a 100% caturra selection from Finca El Zapotillo, owned by Heiner Gonzalez Delgado. Heiner is part of the Lima Coffee group, a small coop with members throughout northern Cajamarca. His farm is 1.5 hectares and located in the Huabal municipality, northeast of the busy, industrial coffee hub city of Jaen. Heiner harvests coffee from June to September, multiple months later than the majority of Cajamarca due to the extremely high elevation.

Among the top 20 submissions to Expo Cajamarca’s coffee competition, we were especially struck by the attributes of Heiner’s coffee: there’s a candy-like sweetness and bright limey acids, subtle tropical fruit flavors, and milk chocolate, all together in a nice harmonious structure. It is a thoroughly enjoyable, inspirational microlot from this area, and gives us a taste of the best potential attributes available from Cajamarca’s many coffee growers. Royal paid $9.00/lb for Heiner’s coffee at auction, all of which goes to the producer.