Coffee in the Peruvian Andes

Coffee tasting at Quillabamba

This is a bit lengthy. I thought we had an unforgettable couple of days and it is difficult to do them justice.

My first job after university had the bizarre title of 'coffee trainee'. It turned out to be fascinating. Coffee is a bit like wine - aroma, acidity, body, flavour, aftertaste. Chocolate, nuts and berries are all recognisable flavours. Specific origins and types of coffee fetch a premium. Small farmers organised into cooperatives and exporting high quality coffee directly to Europe, North America and Japan through Fairtrade have been very successful in improving their position and their communities as well as protecting the environment. None more so than Cocla, a coffee cooperative about 6 hours north of Cusco in Peru. I had always wanted to visit them but never did during my time working for Twin. There are over 7500 farmers in the cooperative. We arranged to make the trip through Cocla's tourism project. Unfortunately Lynne was ill on the day we set off, so she and Simon stayed behind and we met up with them a couple of days later to go to Machu Picchu.

The road to Quillabamba

It was a great couple of days and one of the highlights of my trip so far. The journey through the mountains from Cusco to the town of Quillabamba was stunning - winding through mountains, through a snowy pass and dropping down thousands of metres to a steamy valley. The first few hours of the road are now paved but the last few hours are not, making it a bumpy, sticky ride. Many times there are sheer drops into raging rivers below and I think we all preferred to look the other way. After hours of travelling on what seemed to be a pretty remote road to us, it was amazing to arrive in the fairly big, bustling town of Quillabamba. Mum and Dad's first ride in a local mototaxi.

After a banana milkshake and no lunch we were good to go with our first activity - coffee tasting. I really enjoyed myself, I had forgotten that it can be quite therapeutic. Dad spluttered his way through and mum passed on it and opted to take photos instead. I was pleased to pick out my favourite coffee in the tasting - Cafedirect's Machu Picchu, which is supplied by the coffee farmers in the cooperative. 

The local cooperative shop

The caffeine hit was a welcome pick up as after a tour of the milling and coffee store (which mum and dad being farmers probably engaged in more than the average tourists) we went to a shop run by the cooperative in town. They are producing and selling locally coffee, cocoa, honey and coffee and chocolate liquors. They are basically looking at everything that is produced by the farmers and at how they can add value to it. The cocoa griding and chocolate making facilities and equipment for making the liquors have been funded through the Fairtrade premium. 

Next we went to a women's cooperative who have learnt to make bread and pastries and are selling them in town and in their local villages along with coffee and honey. It sounds simple but it's making a big difference to their lives. We had a fantastic couple of hours speaking to the lady who headed it up. Their training had been funded by the Fairtrade premium, again through Cocla. Her and her husband farm six hours away by communal taxi (service twice a week) followed by a two hour walk. Their little village had just been connected to electricity for the first time in December last year. She described how it had changed her life - no longer stumbling around in the dark with just a candle to prepare everyone's breakfast from 4am. 

The day had been pretty exhausting but very inspiring. We stayed with a local family in the town. As we headed out for a meal in the evening there was not another tourist in sight, just lots of friendly locals - quite a contrast from Cusco.

The next day, we were off early on dirt tracks into the beautiful mountains to visit a local coffee farmer and his family. We crossed a rickety wooden bridge scrambled up steep little tracks between coffee and banana plants and arrived at their home - modest but lovely. We were their first foreign visitors and they were very proud to show us around. We spent a delightful couple of hours with them, they served us fresh trout from a pool diverted from a stream on their farm, roasted us green coffee beans in a pan over a fire and showed us their family food supply of guinea pigs (around 100 of varying ages running around the kitchen and in cages). Bar oil, rice and sugar, they are pretty much self-sufficient.

An amusing aside: the trout pool that mum nearly landed in when she slipped and slid down past the banana plants like she was on a ski slope, stopping just short of the water to everyone's amusement (and slight disappointment that the trouts' visitor didn't quite arrive).

Their 15-year old son, Kevin, was a football fanatic and it turned out, somehow or another, knew about English football back to the 1970s. He had a good time giving Dad a run for his money on football trivia. Mum promised to get him a Liverpool shirt to send over.

They are organic farmers and in a setting like this, the need to produce food and make a living in a way which is in harmony with the ecosystem, could not be more apparent. I think it made us all think about farming in the UK. 

From Quillabamba, rather than returning to Cusco to travel to Machu Picchu, we were to take the 'alternative' route. This involved an incredible journey with a lovely taxi driver through the mountains on tracks with drops down to the side of over 1000 metres (the usual route was closed due to landslides so we had to make this beautiful diversion). We then took a train for around an hour from a village called Santa Teresa to Aguas Calientes (town at the foot of the mountain up to Machu Picchu). After a couple of days of chatting to wonderful local people, peace and incredible views, we suddenly found ourselves crammed in a train carriage with lots of smelly, disgruntled backpackers. They had walked an 'alternative' Inca Trail or were looking for a cheaper route in to Machu Picchu than the $100 round trip from Cusco and were appalled that they had to pay $8 on this train and were in a separate carriage from the locals - who after years of battling over tourists filling up all the places on the trains, have been given separate carriages to travel on and a cheaper rate - fair enough I think. Unfortunately, it was a plonk back down to earth to be in the vicinity once more of some of our fellow travellers, I felt quite ashamed of them. 

A furore outside the train caused by a change in the ticketing system

I would really recommend heading to Quillabamba if you're in Cusco and feeling adventurous. There are lots of amazing walks, Inca trails and Inca ruins in this region, their are hardly any tourists and the people we met were lovely and inspiring.