Martha Isabel - Cruzado Vasquez, Peru

Martha Isabel was 20 when she began growing coffee. Now 64, she tends a one-hectare farm in El Diamante, a village in Jaén, in Peru’s Cajamarca region. Her land reaches 1,620 metres above sea level, where she grows Caturra, Catuaí and Typica. Martha does most of the farm work herself, hiring extra hands for weeding and harvest.

Martha uses the washed process for this lot. She ferments the coffee for a total of 36 hours, using both fermentation tanks and plastic bags kept in cool conditions. She then washes the coffee three times and lets it air-dry for around four hours before spreading it on concrete patios. After roughly 17 days of patio drying, the coffee rests for a further 15 days.

In recent years, Martha has improved productivity on the farm and installed new tanks to give her more control over fermentation. Climate change and a shortage of pickers have made harvests more challenging. She takes pride in maintaining the quality of her coffee and earning a good price for it. Over the next two to three years, her goal is to achieve a higher cupping score.

Suggested Recipe

94C Brewing Temperature

22g Ground Coffee Dose

27-32 Seconds Brewing Time

46-48g Espresso yield

This is a great starting point, but every coffee, grinder and espresso machine will behave a little differently.

For help fine-tuning your recipe, use our Interactive Coffee Dial-In Guide. Enter your current dose, yield, extraction time and how the coffee tastes, and the guide will recommend what to adjust to suit your coffee and taste preferences.

Use our Interactive Dial-In Guide