Here is your South American coffee passport
Your coffee: Brazil Capricornio, Peru Churupampa, Colombia Argote
Brazil
FARMS: Fazenda Santa Mariana, Sitio Teixeira, Fazenda São Carlos
BLEND: Farmer blend with notes of chocolate and berries
LOCATION: Marilia and Garça, Norte Pioneiro
CULTIVARS: Catuaí
EXPORTER: Capricornio Coffees
IMPORTER: This Side Up Coffees
ROASTER: Special Roast
Peru
FARMS: Finca Churupampa SAC
LOCATION: Chirinos, San Ignácio - Cajamarca, Peru
CULTIVARS: Typica, Caturra and Pache
EXPORTER: Churupampa has own export license
IMPORTER: This Side Up Coffees
ROASTER: Special Roast
colombia
FARM: 20 independent farmers, connected by Argote Specialty Coffee
LOCATION: Génova, Colón, Nariño, Colombia
CULTIVARS: Castillo, Caturra, some Catuaí
FARM SIZE: 1 to 2 hectares per farm
EXPORTER: Argote Specialty Coffee
IMPORTER: This Side Up Coffees
ROASTER: Special Roast
About the brazilian farms
Capricornio coffees is located on the line of Capricorn (hence the name!) and therefore quite distant from the Equator, this means that winters are colder and average temperature is lower. The coffees will need to work harder to ripen, which increases the sweetness of the flavor, creating a very distinct coffee. This coffee is a blend especially prepared for Special Roast, and part of the Signature coffees line of the connected Capricornio Estates. Signature coffees have taste profiles idealized and chosen by Capricornio Coffees directors José Antônio and Luiz Roberto, and validated by the Quality Control team. The aim is to create taste profiles that are repeated every year, offering not only quality, but also consistency, that coffee drinkers recognize every year.
About the peruvian farms
Churupampa is not just a farm, it's a social business model which the Tocto family aims to expand, the last years to 30 neighbouring farms in their town of Chirinos. Some of the upgrades include better processing facilities, plant renovation schemes with the introduction of new varieties, new drying techniques with plastic covered raised beds to secure stable and uniform drying despite seasonal rainfalls. In 2018, the quality control team cupped around 4,000 samples. Not one lot goes uncupped! This coffee is also Organic and Fair Trade Certified.
ABOUT ARGOTE
What would happen if we did something different with our coffee? wondered Juan Pablo just when his father, Efraín, was about to sell the estate. What would happen if I moved back to the field? thought Juan Pablo who was then living in the city, like the rest of his brothers. Father and son started processing and roasting their own coffee, selling it locally. In 2014, This Side Ups Lennart met Juan Pablo through a mutual friend. They hit it off immediately and a partnership was born. In the first year, we helped them obtain hulling equipment and an export license so they could sell this coffee straight to us. Less than two years later, they became independent exporters, created raised beds, helped their friends of the Muñoz family process and export their crop, and already seven groups of field baristas have helped to experiment with cascara, honey, natural, anaerobic processing, and much, much more. With a mentality and a network like Argote’s, the sky truly is the limit.
Blending Brazil, Peru with Colombia - coffee specs
what to taste for
Aroma: chocolate, dried berries, caramel, nuts.
Body: round mouthfeel with a thick body.
Acidity: hint of currants.
Aftertaste: dark chocolate, cacao powder, molasses.
PROCESSING your coffee
The Brazilian coffee is a pulped natural. The combination of altitude and processing results in a jammy, red fruit profile, with lots of sweetness and a dark chocolate backbone. The excellent treatment of the Signature lots give it unrivaled consistency in quality and flavor, year after year. The Peruvian coffee is washed and double fermented - using a hand pulper, coffees are pulped and fermented in tiled tanks for about 12-24 hrs depending on weather. They are then washed and fermented again for the same amount of time. The Colombian coffees are a fully washed coffee, meaning the cherries hand-picked, de-pulped, washed with mountain water, fermented for 18-24 hours, sun-dried on concrete patios and on raised “drawers” with high airflow for about 2 weeks, manually sorted at the farm in four separate rounds, hulled and bagged at the Argote family farm.
ROASTING YOUR COFFEE
Special Roast uses a 22kg Probat UG22 roaster, that has been built in 1965. The roast time is 11 minutes. After the first crack, the coffee is roasted for a remainder of 25% of the time. To obtain the best flavor and taste each coffee or blend has a unique roast profile.
Relative PRICE BREAKDOWN
60%
is what the farmers get of the green coffee price in Rotterdam. This is for growing, harvest, milling and preparing the bags for export.
11%
Exporting by Capricornio in Brazil and Finca Churupampa in Peru, Argote in Colombia
9%
total shipping costs to Rotterdam. Full container loads good forwarding connections warrant such favorable shipping prices.
20%
Importing, financing, shipping bureaucracy, sampling and financing costs for This Side Up Coffees.
Copyright on pictures. Please consult This Side Up Coffees if one desires to use the pictures for commercial and non-commercial purposes.
Background of this coffee in the Netherlands
Brazil
Honestly, Brazil had never been on our minds as a potential origin for coffee importer This Side Up. We didn't think our mission of helping smallholders market their coffees would fit in such an established coffee industry. That was until Luiz Saldanha and his partners captured our imagination. They established Capricornio to breathe new life in five regions in the southern states of Paraná and São Paolo, which until the 1960s, were one of the country's most vibrant coffee producing regions. Due to terrible frosts and the rise of the major coffee regions up north, its production stagnated, leading many coffee farmers to move north, leaving their farms underdeveloped. Now, due to climate change, these regions have become attractive to farmers again, but hardly anyone saw specialty potential.
That is until Capricornio found 20 passionate farmers and started the Four Seasons project: they helped them turn their farms into modern, ecologically sustainable farms and process their coffees to the highest standards. Now, they have started to show what these coffee regions have to offer the specialty coffee world. Because of its uniquely low latitude (around the tropic of Capricorn at 23ºS), coffee here endures more stress while developing. This leads to large, slowly ripened cherries with surprisingly complex cup profiles, similar to what happens at higher altitudes. We were impressed not only by the coffee's cup quality, but by the company's achievements in processing and creating coffees in close cooperation with specialty roasters and experts (such as Aida Battle) worldwide.
This connection to the roaster's world meant there was an immediate click with This Side Up, and since 2017, we've been proud to promote Capricornio in the European market. For the second season, we're co-creating a diverse range of coffees together with roasters from around Europe: from signature blends to exclusive processing experiments and microlots.
Peru
When we came across Churupampa through former This Side Upper Sara's network, we saw the smallholder development model that we are promoting worldwide, but fast-forwarded several years. The Tocto family's achievement is a national example of how entrepreneurship, respect for local farming traditions, circular thinking and direct roaster relations can completely change rural livelihoods. Since 2011, the coffee farming community in the town Chirinos has done away with the subsistence coffee farming mentality and steadily created a strong, quality focused brand: their innovative processing and independent quality control lab ensure that they can create beautiful coffees that are sought after yearly by the specialty market - up to now mainly in the US.
In 2017 This Side Up connected to Churupampa, and we immediately knew we wanted to welcome this group of farmers into our "family" and help them continue their path of quality innovation and expansion to more people in the region. As a first import, we sought to identify lots that represent the breadth that this origin can offer. The Churupampa lot is surprisingly fruity for a Peru with notes of apricot, orange, sugar and custard, whereas the Cordillera Nadina is deep sweet with notes of molasses, sugar cane, lime and cocoa nibs.
Colombia
Nariño, renowned in the coffee world, has seen its prominence shift with the rise of Third Wave coffee. Despite challenges, it remains a stellar Colombian coffee origin, boasting ideal conditions for cultivating exceptional beans. One standout area is Colón, where unique mountain dynamics foster ideal growing conditions, yielding coffee with exquisite acidity, smooth texture, and rich aromas. Juan Pablo, deeply connected to Colón, recognized the potential of his family's coffee and sought to bring it to foreign markets. Through a fortuitous connection, we met Juan Pablo and were captivated by his coffee's quality. Our visit to Colón revealed the community's need for development, with potential for impactful change through direct coffee trade. Together, we embarked on a journey to uplift Colón, starting with enhancing processing standards and exporting their specialty coffee to Europe.
Our partnership flourished, culminating in the successful arrival of the exceptional coffee, surpassing all expectations. Juan Pablo's dedication to quality and community empowerment resonated with us deeply, driving us to continue supporting his vision for Genova's growers. As we prepare for the upcoming harvest, we're honored to collaborate with someone who shares our dream of elevating not just coffee quality, but the lives of those who cultivate it.