Peru - Jorge Chavez

Jorge Chavez is not a person, but a very small town of around 30 families in northern Peru. Each year they harvest around 250 bags of exceptional, consistent, and sweet coffee beans. Don Ciro Castro is the coffee leader of the community. Don Ciro and his family lived high in the Andes Mountains where they raised cattle and produced Aguardiente, a Peruvian spirit made from sugarcane. By the 1990s, Don Ciro could no longer compete with the corporate Aguardiente manufacturers, so he, his wife, and his oldest son, Henry, moved to the village of Jorge Chavez. They built a livestock farm and reinvested the profits into cultivating coffee. In the last few years, Don Ciro and Henry led the community initiative to transition to specialty-grade coffee production. Don Ciro now consolidates and keeps track of the town’s coffee lots, loads them into a truck, and takes them to be processed. This coffee is special because it is the effort of multiple families in a community, and it represents some of the best coffee Peru has to offer. Peru has a burgeoning coffee industry that may soon match the dynamics of Colombia, and we're excited to explore this region and all it has to offer—coffee and stories alike.