What is a Buying Trip?

This is the most active time of year for the Peruvian coffee industry. The harvest is approximately 1/2 way through, high altitude coffee harvest has began, exports are ramping up, and buying trips begin.

So what is a Buying Trip?

Buying trip to Quillabamba Cusco, June 2009

Green Coffee Buyers (exporters, importers and roasters) have the elusive job of discovering, developing and preserving the right coffee for their customers. Traditionally this takes place from an office, where the buyer waits for hundreds of samples to arrive and then picks through them, perhaps never setting foot at the origin of production. For specialty green coffee buyers, the buying process requires travel to origin.

These excursions into coffee mountains consist of a great deal of interaction with the farmers and associations in order to provide the personal testimony of transparency, motivate both sides of the supply chain, calibrate tasters palates, and gain a personal knowledge of the people and place which produces our coffee. The end result is a better cup of coffee, higher premiums for farmers and dignified seller-buyer relationships.

In August Cafe Verde will have the privilege of leading 6 top North American specialty coffee buyers to the mountains of northern Cajamarca. This area is the hot bed of Peruvian specialty coffee, and certainly has been the most impressive origin for consistent specialty coffee of Peru.

Cafe Verde is proud to have been working with CENFROCAFE since our inception, and we look forward to tasting and buying their most fabulous coffees in August. Look for Cajamarcan coffee in Cafe Verde towards the end of August or September.