Sustainable Harvest

In late February, the first cupping workshop of the year took place at our Lima office’s new training area — the Center for Excellence. This inaugural workshop brought together twenty-five Peruvian coffee producers from twenty cooperatives for a week of intensive training and instruction in tasting and grading specialty coffee. Attendees hailed from all zones of coffee producing regions of Peru, and included co-op managers, presidents, and cuppers, providing a unique chance for the farmers to communicate and calibrate with peers who work in conditions and areas different than their own. This year, Sustainable Harvest also invited representatives from five new Peruvian cooperatives with whom we’ll work this coming harvest. The course provided these new suppliers an opportunity to meet and learn from producers who are already a part of our supply chain.

25 producers from 20 different cooperatives attended the workshop for hands-on training in coffee cupping and quality control

Many of the workshop participants were learning about coffee cupping for the first time. Because of this, our Peru staff focused their teaching on discovering, evaluating, and determining the many different qualities that coffee can possess: odor, taste, body, acidity, and more. For instance, participants tasted different kinds of fresh fruit, dried fruit, and spices to help them familiarize themselves with flavors that are commonly used to describe coffee.

Workshop participants tasted fruits and spices to familiarize themselves with the flavors that emerge in a high-quality cup

Several more cupping workshops are scheduled for the coming year. These week-long training sessions help coffee producers discern the features of high-quality specialty coffee in the beans they produce. The course introduces them to the exact cupping methods used by the companies that buy and roast their coffees.

As Oscar Gonzales from Sustainable Harvest said, “In these courses, we are teaching the producers to develop the best system possible for successfully selecting the coffee they sell to their customers.” When cooperatives understand the quality of their own product, they act as the first gatekeeper for quality, catching problems as they arise and ensuring the highest quality export possible. Open lines of communication and a common understanding of coffee quality maximizes the success of everyone involved in the value chain — producers, importers, and roasters.

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