Peru | Cleber Córdoba
After a few years of plentiful Peru single origin options, we've gone through a quieter patch recently. That's until this coffee sample from Cleber Córdoba arrived on our cupping table, full of sweetness and elegance.
Cleber's story echoes the story of many young producers we source from: after years of learning traditional best practices passed down through the family, Cleber became aware of the emerging speciality coffee market and the opportunities available to those producers brave enough to experiment with the classical cultivation and processing methods handed down through the generations. This approach is not as simple as it sounds - experimenting with these methods can produce fantastic coffee lots like this one but can also ruin lots and make them difficult or impossible to sell.
In addition to processing, Cleber has been trying to develop some prized varieties such as Geisha and Obata, but this coffee is an example of more traditional varieties, Caturra and Bourbon, done really well. This coffee is fermented without oxygen for 48 hours in advance of being washed, but while fermentation can often lead to wild and wacky results, in this case, subtlety is the name of the game.
Everything about this coffee is refined and understated and the end result is a complex but also classic cup celebrating Peruvian coffee.