When a Coffee Harvest Means More

By Brian April 6, 2020

When I was five or six hours into our eight-hour ride through the Peruvian mountains, our van stopped at a water crossing to ensure we could make it. What do you mean “if we can cross,” I thought? What happens if we can’t? We’re in the middle of who-knows-where Peru, driving hours away from the last semblance of life and yet, still toward our destination. What was our other option here but to cross?

Our driver assessed the depth of this water crossing in the middle of the dirt road no wider than my driveway, and with us all watching from just ahead, he floored it and the van powered through. On we went, for two or three more hours until we reached our destination: Querocoto, Peru, home of the Rutas del Inca Cooperative.

When cell phones don’t work and you’re trying your best not to throw up, there’s plenty of time for perspective on a drive like this. And the thought I kept considering was how in the world did we, in small Davidson, get a coffee from a world like this.

I spent a week in Querocoto in 2018, conversing with and admiring and working alongside the 253 producers that make up the cooperative. Never mind that my Spanish is poor, at best, we didn’t need much language to exchange our gratitude for one another. I, a coffee roaster from the States, was grateful for the focus and troubles that go into getting us coffee from Rutas. They, the producers and their families, were grateful for meeting someone from the U.S. — they had never before met an American — and understanding where the fruits of their labor, literally, end up.

This week, Summit is releasing our sixth harvest of Rutas del Inca — an organic coffee that has a special parallel to our growth as a company. In January 2015, a sample from this tiny cooperative happened to be the first we ever tried as a coffee roasting business, and then the first that we ever purchased. Every year since, we’ve anticipated the Rutas arrival like it’s Christmas morning. The coffee is great, but this is about so much more — it’s about two businesses, worlds apart, being inextricably connected by a gratitude for one another, an appreciation of a craft that bookends this supply chain.

Every year this coffee comes in, it tells a different story about the cooperative, and about Summit, and generally just the world at large. After my visit in 2018, we had a new story with deeper appreciation for the people, for the hands we shook and the farms we walked, the coffee cherries we picked and the meals we shared together.

It’s hard to imagine that now, we aren’t even allowed to visit our friends in Peru. I worry about them some, when my mind escapes for a bit and I think back to that trip, to that river crossing. Peru is largely shut down as a country and, while these producers are immensely more resilient than I will ever have to be, how is the current pandemic impacting them? Are they healthy? Are they still growing coffee? You see, they don’t even really have phones and computers in Querocoto so it’s not like I can send them a text or email and expect to hear back.

The story from this year’s harvest tells a more somber story. The COVID-19 pandemic feels in some ways like a cruel break for these friends. Peru had a really challenging coffee harvest — Rutas produced only half of their normal volume of coffee. The unpredictable rains, unusual heat, the rapidly changing climate are all wreaking havoc on their coffee production. On their livelihood.

So when our import partners warned us a few months ago about the shortage, Donovan and I discussed whether we should follow through on our commitment to purchase 40 bags —more than 6,000 pounds — from them, sight unseen. The indications weren’t positive, and the research we’d done led us to believe the cup quality of the 2020 harvest from Rutas del Inca was going to be lower than in previous years.

But while we’re in the coffee business, we’re more so in the relationship business. My primary takeaway from spending seven days with these friends in Querocoto wasn’t how great the coffee was. It was how great the people were, how great they are, and how hard they work to produce coffee and ship it to a faraway world they’ll never dream to see.

Donovan and I agreed to hold true to our commitment, to purchase this coffee for the same price we agreed to before the bad reports because that’s what you do in relationships. We’re the fortunate ones here, who have the easy job. What message would we be sending to Rutas if we turned our backs on them now? We’ve been partners for six years, and this year is when they need us the most.

The coffee is very good, and it’s different than it has been. Luckily Donovan is a wizard and amended our usual approach to this coffee to accentuate its strengths while minimizing its shortcomings. If, despite the hard harvest and despite the washed out roads, our friends were able to get us the 40 bags of coffee, we damn sure better do our best to make great coffee.

Here’s where the story gets even more complicated. When you pre-order a certain volume of coffee, it’s based on projections.. But the coronavirus is kicking our butts a little bit, and now we’re not quite sure what to do with more than 6,000 pounds of coffee. Thankfully people are still buying coffee, and our cafés are still open, and some of our wholesale customers are persevering. We will figure it out, we always do.

I don’t know when I will be able to take that nauseating 8-hour van ride again, to see my friends and be able to hug them and thank them for their hard work. I know they won’t read this Journal. But if the last year has taught us anything, it’s the value of the work we’re doing, of holding true to our commitment of relationship coffee sourcing.

For reasons different than the past five years, I am thrilled to reintroduce Rutas del Inca into our coffee lineup. The cup is sweet and balanced, and tells a story far beyond what most people who will drink it can ever understand. We roast and serve this coffee with a deeper appreciation for all the hands it took to get it to us, and all the hands it will positively impact.

link to original journal