El Mirador

Eli Espinoza is a second-generation farmer from the highlands of Cajamarca, where his family grew potatoes and raised sheep. In the early 2000s he followed his father to Chirinos, who was just starting to plant coffee. With no income from the young trees, Eli worked on nearby farms to help provide for the family, slowly saving until he could buy a small plot of his own and plant his first caturras.

Land by land, he built everything from the ground up — his house, his drying patios, his processing setup. Today, he and his wife farm around four hectares of caturra, bourbon, java, geisha and heirloom varieties.

Eli prefers naturals — he's convinced they give him the best cup. In 2019, knowing his selective picking deserved better scores than he was getting, he started experimenting: longer fermentations on his washed lots first, then honeys, then naturals. The protocol he landed on that year transformed his quality, and it's been his standard ever since.

Cherries are picked deep, ruby-red ripe, then washed and floated at his processing area to remove any defects. The remaining cherry is covered with tarpaulin and fermented whole in tiled tanks for 48 hours.

The coffee is sun-dried briefly to shed surface moisture, then moved onto raised beds inside a parabolic dryer for a slow 30-day finish.

Tasting notes include peach, grape and honeysuckle.