Peru Blanca Campos Geisha

“El Chachacaspe” farm is located in the Tabaconas district, a four-hour drive from the city of Jaén, where most of the coffee produced in the department of Cajamarca is processed and marketed. Blanca (37) has been growing coffee since she was 12 years old, helping her parents on the farm with varieties such as caturra, pache, catimor.
She tells us that in those days her family’s coffee production ended up being sold to different coffee traders who came to the farm and took the coffee. Her family had no knowledge of the physical and sensory analysis to define the quality and price of the coffee, for which reason they were always surprised or deceived by the coffee collectors.
This changed when her father joined a cooperative, where they learned what aspects should be taken into account for the sale of coffee, one of the most important of which was the cupping. Blanca continued working with coffees but now on her own account, she had inherited land from her father and at the same time was acquiring new areas but always working with varieties similar to those her father had.

Four years ago, Albertino, Blanca’s husband and agronomist by profession, had the opportunity to obtain seeds of Panama Gesha. He knew the potential of the variety, but did not know how it would behave on the farm. After talking with Blanca they decided to try planting the seeds. Aided by the farm’s ecosystem and Blanca’s effort and care for the plants, she has achieved impressive results with a unique Gesha profile that has been conquering different palates in both Asia and Europe. Blanca is currently taking care of the farm, as Albertino is constantly traveling for his work. She has the satisfaction of being able to see how her effort and dedication is rewarded with the price she is receiving for her coffee.  This has motivated her to obtain new areas of land to expand the Gesha plants (at the moment she has around 1,500 plants producing around 9 quintals of coffee). This 2025 she expects to have her first harvest of Tabi variety and hopes to produce more amazing coffee.

During the harvest season Blanca is helped by family and neighbors to picking up the ripe beans. Before starting the floating process she does a double check that it doesn’t contain any unripe beans or foreign matters. The next step is the flotation process followed by pulping and finally entering the fermentation tank.

Initially Blanca fermented the coffee for 24 hours, but after some tests it obtained better sensory results by only fermenting the coffee for 12 hours. After that the seeds are washed and moved to raised beds and depending on the weather it takes between 15-20 days to reach 10.5% – 11% moisture content. Finally, the coffee parchment is stored in propylene bags for 3-4 weeks to stabilise.