Coffee has a long and rich history: the legend of its discovery goes all the way back to
800 AD and written accounts of brewing trace back to the 17th century. The country of
Peru was introduced to the coffee plant in the 18th century but the land used to grow
the crop was home to a civilization that predates coffee itself. The land belonged to the Wari, a people group who lived from 1200 - 600 BC. For context, that’s during the Iron
Age, centuries before the Incan Empire was thought of and eons before Kaldi and his
goats stumbled upon a coffee tree.
Now called the municipality La Convencion in the department of Cusco, the people of
Peru are still living and farming on the same land. More than 11 small scale farms grow
coffee, their driving economic force, under the collective name Espiritu de Wari or Spirit
of Wari. They began focusing on specialty grade coffee ten years ago and since then
have greatly enhanced their crop quality and processing methods. This new coffee is a
washed process blend of Caturra, Catimor, and Bourbon varietals. Each farm has a
slightly different method of fermentation depending on elevation and daily weather
patterns resulting in these beans being fermented between 30 - 50 hours. They are
washed 2 - 3 times and are then set out on drying beds for 15 - 20 days.
