PERU - El Cedrillo

The Flavour Profile

Peru - El Cedrillo brings brown sugar, orange and caramel to the cup — a warm, rounded medium roast built on real altitude and craft. Grown between 1,800 and 1,850 metres, the cherries mature slowly at that height, which lets sugars develop more fully in the bean before it's even picked — that's where the brown sugar sweetness starts. The Caturra and Bourbon varietals lean naturally toward sweetness and body, and a fully washed process keeps the cup clean and bright rather than heavy, letting the orange note come through clearly against the caramel base. At medium roast, some of that origin brightness is gently rounded off in favour of a fuller, more comforting sweetness — smooth and balanced rather than sharp.

Drinking it black? Expect brown sugar and orange up front, with a caramel sweetness that lingers into a smooth, rounded finish.

Drinking it with milk? The caramel deepens and the orange softens into a gentler citrus warmth — a comforting, dessert-like cup.

Single origin, versatile across every brew method, and freshly roasted to order by Nick in our roastery, just outside Canterbury — so it never sits around waiting for you. Grab a kilo and save 10%, and as always, we're happy to grind it however you brew at home.

Little Details

Grown on El Cedrillo, a 2-hectare farm in La Naranja, Cajamarca, Peru, owned by Osmer Cruz Guerrero and exported through the Alpes Andinos producer association. Caturra and Bourbon varietals, fully washed, grown at 1,800–1,850 metres above sea level, certified organic.

About the Process

At El Cedrillo, harvest runs from July to November, and every cherry is selectively hand-picked — only the ripest are chosen, then carried by mule half a kilometre to the wet mill.

At the mill, the cherries are floated in tanks of cool, clean water, letting any low-density or underripe cherries be separated out before processing even begins. The water is drained and the cherries ferment for 72 hours, then pulped to remove the outer fruit using water from a local spring. A second fermentation follows — 96 hours this time — to fully break down the remaining mucilage, before the coffee is washed three times over.

From there, the beans are spread on raised beds inside greenhouses to dry slowly, taking 15 to 20 days to reach the ideal moisture content — patience that protects the sweetness built up during growing and fermentation. Once ready, Osmer trucks the coffee three hours to Jaen, the Alpes Andinos headquarters, to be hulled and prepared for export.

Osmer only turned to coffee farming in 2019, after the pandemic changed everything — a former mechanic building a new, sustainable livelihood one careful harvest at a time. Every cup of this coffee carries that patience with it, from mule track to greenhouse to your cafetière.