Since before Red Fox was born, Puno’s Sandia Valley has been a constant source of inspiring producing partners and the delicious coffees they bring to the table season after season. While we’ve bought coffees from Puno every year, the relationship dates all the way back to 2007, when Aleco tasted a Puno coffee with mind-blowing florals and and gorgeous sweetness and had to track it down. After a 13-hour bus ride in blazing heat and humidity, he found allies for what would become key partnerships and came back to buy coffee every year.
Within the massive Sandia Valley lie many smaller valleys, each hosting unique coffee-producing communities of smallholder farmers averaging just 2.5 hectares of coffee land, including Inambari, Tupac Amaru, and San Juan del Oro. Due to a UN-led replanting project in the 80s, much of Sandia Valley grows Bourbon-variety coffee, offering an elegant, floral, honeyed, and dynamically citric character, or, alternately, a rich, full-bodied, and incredibly sweet malic red apple or pear aspect. These coffees are entirely unique to Puno, distinct from what you’ll find in other regions of Peru, and offer something for every palate.
Through many ups and downs, Puno’s Sandia Valley has been a constant in our work. As some relationships within the valley have ebbed, others have grown, and the coffees have only gotten better over time. We’re excited to bring you this year’s offerings, many of which we actually bought in parchment and milled ourselves, as well as to see what the future holds for Sandia Valley and the coops within.
The name of Zenobio’s farm is “Huayrapata” which means in quechua ”winds on the high mountains”
