Unit Fourteen, Estrella Divina a perfect partnership since 2018
Estrella Divina is a community blend of Pache, Catimor, Caturra and Bourbon grown by 27 smallholder farmers, each working at high altitudes close to the village of Rumpite in La Coipa, in the North of Peru in the San Ignazio region.
What is a typical farm like?
The small holders each have between 1-3 hectare farms and as part of the Estrella Divina co-operative program have been certified organic. The farms are at altitudes of between 1300-1800 metres above sea level and each have their own small micro-mills or ‘beneficios’ where they de-pulp, ferment, wash and dry the coffees themselves. Fermentation usually takes between 13-18 hours and drying anywhere between 12-20 days (quite a range largely down to variance in altitude). The separately processed coffees are then brought together to be evaluated with the best lots being blended into the high quality community blend. The results are really special, we find that the coffee is always beautifully sweet and milk chocolatey with lovely red berry notes, lovely delicate florals. In spite of being a blend from multiple producers unlike our other Unit 14 coffees which are single producer coffees, it is often the highest scoring coffee of them, generally scoring between 85 and 87 points on the cupping table.
When the community lots are that exceptional we can only imagine how stunning micro lots would be.
Buying Seasonally
For a roastery aiming to buy coffee seasonally, Peru is something of a lifesaver, with its harvest happening between May and October and arriving between October and December Peru offers us fresh seasonal coffee that works perfectly for Unit 14 at a time where availability of such coffees is scarce. In all honesty that’s why we first used Peruvian coffee, it wasn’t a country we’d been to or knew a lot about but the samples from our import partners Nordic Approach tasted great and it came right in the middle of our ‘hungry gap’. That’s why when we first bought Estrella Divina in 2018 we only bought 20 bags, now, incredibly it is one of our favourite, most reliable and largest volume coffees, to the point that this year we will buy between 200 & 250 bags!
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Typical farm in San Ignazio ![]()
Anita Garcia and family ![]()
Francisco Laban Chanta ![]()
Coffee parchment drying
A long partnership together
The community of 27 farmers that make up the Estrella Divina work closely together, particularly when it comes to harvest, they help each other during the busy season. They have a term “Mingas” which roughly translates as “today for you, tomorrow for me” which nicely illustrates their ethos of mutual assistance.
We as yet haven’t managed to make a trip to Peru, with one being cancelled due to covid and another due to budgetary constraints. It is high on our list to visit and build our relationships and understanding of the communities we buy from. Also we hope in the future to be able to buy more micro lots and single producer lots from the community of farmers that make up Estrella Divina.