BALANCE - EL GUAYACAN | PERU

Farm Info

San Ignacio & Jaén, Cajamarca, Peru

San Ignacio and Jaén sit up in the north of Cajamarca, on the border with Ecuador, a region known for its pristine forests and widely regarded as the heartland of Peruvian coffee. It's a place with deep political and religious history, and in recent years coffee has driven real growth here, bringing prosperity and development. Both provinces have become leaders in tourism and environmentally friendly farming.

The producers here are genuinely passionate about specialty coffee, and just as committed to farming sustainably mindful of biodiversity, careful with wastewater and pulping waste. Over the past few years they've moved away from traditional commercial practices toward a real focus on quality, managing their farms in a more technical, organised way and understanding coffee as something made for a customer to enjoy. Visit the farms and you'll see it in the improved wet mills and drying areas that have been central to lifting quality. Most producers here trace their roots to the Cajamarca sierra and Piura. The farms are richly biodiverse, with clay soils and constant rain, conditions shaped by the influence of the Huamantanga Forest and the Tabaconas–Namballe National Sanctuary, which together create an ideal microclimate for specialty coffee.

Community & Impact

El Guayacán takes its name from a magnificent tree with yellow flowering that graces the coffee landscapes of northern Cajamarca, often standing among the farms to shade and protect the coffee trees. Caravela began working in the area in 2019 with the help of their PECA agronomists, starting El Guayacán with an initial group of 35 producers. The coffee now brings together some of Caravela's oldest relationships with quality-minded growers in northern Peru, the PECA team has worked alongside this group for three years, building trust and seeing real gains in both infrastructure and cup quality. It's a partnership rooted in investing in farmers, raising quality, and building a sustainable, dignified standard of living for the whole community.