Aspiring ‘Specialty’ at Peruvian Coffee Farms

(In)Stability, Knowledge and Symbolic Value in the Specialty Coffee

Chain

Marijn Steijn, 10685189

Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam

MSc Social and Cultural Anthropology
Supervisor: Christina Harris
Second reader: Laurens Bakker
Word count: 21781

Amsterdam, February 11, 2023

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“Declaration: I have read and understood the University of Amsterdam plagiarism policy
[http://student.uva.nl/mcsa/az/item/plagiarism-and-fraud.html?f=plagiarism]. I declare that this
assignment is entirely my own work, all sources have been properly acknowledged, and that I
have not previously submitted this work, or any version of it, for assessment in any other paper.”
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Abstract

Specialty coffee is a unique product that is characterized by its quality, focus on standards and
excellence, and high value placed on its taste and provenance. Consumers of specialty coffee are
willing to pay a premium price for rare and high-quality coffee. In producer countries like Peru,
the specialty coffee market is seen as a way to improve the lives of small-scale coffee producers
by providing them with stability and protection from the volatile coffee market. Coffee-
producing families who own land in coffee landscapes are interested in the foreign market and
see specialty coffee as a way to contribute to their values and aspirations.
However, the academic field of agro-food niche markets has taken a critical stance,
arguing that smallholders are not able to fully profit from niche markets because they lack the
necessary resources and access to the symbolic domains where the most economic surplus is
generated. This thesis aims to shift the focus to the new markets experienced by coffee
producers. Results are based on ten weeks of fieldwork in the Selva and Andes of the region
Junín in Peru, where I conducted participant observations, informal conversations, and
interviews with coffee producers, coffee cooperative staff members and roasters.
The research analyzes the understanding and perception of specialty coffee among coffee
producers and how these perceptions impact the production and marketing of coffee. Producers
are expected to invest in materials and methods that improve the quality of their coffee in order
to meet international standards. However, the specialty coffee market requires new forms of
knowledge and skills that depart from traditional practices. Despite this challenge, coffee farmers
are eager to participate in the market, but access to key players in the supply chain, such as
specialty buyers and roasters, is crucial for their success.
I argue that direct relationships between producers and buyers/roasters can provide
transparency and upgrade the position of coffee farmers in the supply chain. However,
transparency often operates as a one-way gaze from consumer to producer, requiring significant
efforts to bridge the gaps between different worlds of value. I argue that intimate relationships
based on trust between specialty buyers and coffee farmers can be a useful formula to close these
gaps and facilitate the exchange of knowledge between these two worlds.
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Table of Contents

Introduction _______________________________________________________________4

Relevance 7

Benefits of Specialty Coffee: a Theoretical Debate on Value, Quality and Aspiration 9

Methodology and Positionality 11

Ethics 12

Outline 13

Chapter One: Political-Economic Context of the Coffee Sector_____________________15

Colonial Era 16

Agrarian Reform 17

Transition towards the Market Economy 19

The Emergence of Niches 21

Chapter Two: Stability in Precarious Times _____________________________________23

Crises and economic activities 25

Coffee values and aspirations 28

Chapter Three: Quality ideas in coffee farming__________________________________33

Defining objective quality 34

Creating material quality 37

Chapter Four: Mythologies of transparency_____________________________________45

The Material Culture of Specialty Coffee 47

Knowledge and Transparency 47

Gaps in the chain 49

Turning myths into profits 50

Conclusion ________________________________________________________________52

Bibliography ______________________________________________________________55
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Introduction

On October 6th, 2022 I received the following newsletter from Barista Hustle in my mailbox:

[At World Barista Championships] You’ll have heard endless details of variety, terroir, and
processing from the competitors, and more than a few personal stories about the farmers
and their families.
We’ve come to expect this kind of traceability data in specialty coffee as a bare minimum
[…] Producers are expected to give full details of the methods they have developed over
generations, while rarely getting anything in return — not even access to the kind of
information we demand from them.
Even worse, this information is too often focused on the coffee, rather than the humans
behind it. The amount of data we have about coffee processing, and market factors like
yields, quality, and prices, stands in stark contrast to the information we have about the
lives and livelihoods of most of the people that produce our coffee.

It was my personal relationship with coffee that led me to study coffee. My dad drank
8-10 cups of coffee per day and I remember he asked me every morning to serve him a cup of
black filtered coffee. As a child, I learned that it was a beverage for adults, perhaps because of the
caffeine content. I became excited about coffee when I drank my specialty coffee from Kenya
with fruity and floral taste notes. I did not know that coffee could taste that sweet and silky.
During my bachelor’s, I decided to work in a specialty coffee bar part-time. Although I did not
really like the stress, the demanding yuppie customers, and waking up at six o’clock, it did provide
me with enough money to undertake a five-month trip to the origins of coffee production. A few
months later I was in the coffee region of Ecuador where I met coffee farmer Sebastián, the
owner of a beautiful hacienda farm at a high altitude who came from an upper-class background
and had a degree in agronomy. He was known to produce one of the best coffees in the world.
When I was there, Sebastián and barista Julián were simultaneously preparing for the Baristas’
World Championship (WBC) and opening a new specialty coffee bar in Cuenca. It was
overwhelming to observe the passion and dedication of the farmer and the barista in their
preparations prior to the WBC. Julián said that Sebastián developed his own fertilizer and
distribution system, and that is what made his coffee so good. Additionally, Sebastián took
advantage of expertise and capital to endlessly experiment with his coffee beans. I came to think
of Sebastián, Julián and myself as part of the ‘Third Wave’ coffee movement. We share a passion
for excellence, exotic flavors, novelty and innovative techniques of producing and brewing coffee.
Sebastián’s situation was unlike most coffee farmers. Usually, coffee producers are seen as
the poster child of the exploitation of 20th-century capitalism (Roseberry 1996). They own a few
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hectares, often in remote areas, are low educated and live in modest circumstances. For my
fieldwork at coffee farms in the central highlands of Peru, I went to study coffee farmers who
(aim to) participate in similar specialty niches as Sebastián, but who are far from wealthy and
educated. They rather fit the image of the ‘exploited’. I was unsure what to expect, as I wondered
what motivated them; were they also as passionate and obsessed about excellence, uniqueness
and exotic flavors, or did they have other reasons? What did these poor coffee producers value
about coffee and how are these values connected with the values of the specialty coffee
movement? Are they similar, or two worlds apart?

Rising Niches of Specialty Coffees

The Third Wave coffee movement is part of a broader movement of food consumption that
values high quality, excellence, artisanry and uniqueness. Additionally, it is often valued to know
the origin and production methods of what is consumed; geographic, moral, and ethical
considerations play a role. Third Wave coffee consumers value the unalienated labor that goes
into their coffee and assume that by paying a higher price, they support a more ethical and fair
agricultural economy (Fischer 2019, 3).
Third Wave coffees are often sold at a premium price due to their unique characteristics
and high quality. A globally standardized grading system for green coffee beans is used to
distinguish specialty coffees from others on the basis of intrinsic quality. Producers are able to
gain more income by enhancing the intrinsic quality of their products. This implies the neoliberal
promise that hard work is justly rewarded. Participation in a meritocratic market creates
opportunities for small-scale coffee-producing families to protect themselves from a volatile
market of homogeneous coffees. Most smallholders who live in precarious conditions, dealing
with market fluctuations and rising costs of production, while concurrently being challenged by
droughts, rainfall, and plant diseases that endanger harvest yields, may improve their livelihoods
and conditions by means of participation.
Specialty coffee, among other specialized agro-food niche markets, is often presented as
an opportunity for growth and development for producers in the Global South. However,
anthropological studies have criticized the local impact of these schemes. For instance, in the
Coffee Paradox (2005), Daviron and Ponte argue that the distribution of value is skewed because
most value accumulates at the consumer side of the chain. Additionally, Li (2014), proposes that
the emergence of capitalist relations in developing countries that promote growth creates poverty
when the distribution of growth is not prioritized. Moreover, Derks et al. (2020) show how in
competitive global niche markets of ‘Champagne Cinnamon’, different actors use contradictory
strategies of differentiation (or de-commodification) to make a commodity distinct. It is often
the non-economic factors, such as de-commodified images of poverty and primitivity and labels
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of fairness that are infused into coffee beans to add value (Reichman 2008; West 2012, 25).
Notably, these different strategies of value creation appear to be more beneficial for
intermediaries than for local cultivators. According to Fischer (2019, 18-19), the surplus value
accumulated in the Global North is not due to control over productive capital, but rather due to
the ability to translate qualities across value worlds. High-end coffee niche markets reward
objective quality on production sites, but smallholding coffee farmers often lack the social capital
to translate their material endowments, technical expertise, and cultural capital into economic
gain, which puts them at a structural disadvantage.
On one side of the chain, there are coffee-producing families1 from the Peruvian
Highlands who own land on high-altitude landscapes ideal for the production of high-quality
coffees. A rise in foreign interest from specialty coffee buyers and roasters who are seeking new
unique flavors that these landscapes offer provides producers with new markets and
opportunities. Large-scale farms are more likely to integrate well into coffee niches due to their
financial and social capital, whereas small-scale producing families tend to have fewer
opportunities to benefit from this rise in demand. Most smallholders live in precarious
conditions, dealing with market fluctuations and rising costs of production, while concurrently
being challenged by droughts, rainfall, and plant diseases that endanger harvest yields.
The problem lies in the assumption that the purchase of pricey specialty coffees
automatically benefits producers, as it implies that producers are entirely dependent on the fickle
nature of consumer demands. Small-scale farmers are indeed rewarded when they invest in
material quality, but serious challenges are presented when they do not have access to
information about the strategies that retailers and roasters use to construct “narratives of
symbolic value worlds that orient paths of desire and demand” (Fischer 2019, 4). In addition, the
information about coffee processing and marketing stands in stark contrast to the information
available about the livelihoods of the people behind the coffee. Thus, on the starting nodes of
the chain, there appears to be a lack of access to the knowledge about the symbolic value words
wherein the most capital is accumulated. And on the end nodes of the coffee chain, there is a
limited understanding of the livelihoods of producers.
In this thesis, I aim to investigate how the quality turn towards high-end coffee markets in
Peru is motivated and experienced by small-scale producing families as ordinary people. I
demonstrate how coffee farmers live in uncertainty and instability and how specialty coffee
promises stability. I argue that they perceive specialty coffee as an imperfect means to an end: the
pursuit of their values as a farmer and the ability to aspire to a better future. Yet, such promised

1 In the rest of the thesis, I will use synonyms for coffee-producing families for textual reasons. Nonetheless, it is
important to emphasize that coffee production is in most cases a family endeavor.
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stability may not be experienced when existing gaps of knowledge deprive small-scale farmers of
the opportunity to translate across value worlds.

Relevance
This research started as a project for applied anthropology. The initiative came from Susana
Jansen, co-owner of ‘Sembrando Peru’ and alumni of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the
University of Amsterdam. Sembrando Peru imports specialty coffee from different coffee
regions in Peru and sells them to specialty roasters in Western Europe. In many cases, specialty
coffee buyers are interested in the best lots2. They visit cooperatives on a specific estate or attend
auctions where they execute ‘cuppings’ or quality evaluations of coffees from different estates
and farms. Without knowing the people producing the coffee, or without visiting the farms
where the coffee is produced, these buyers purchase the coffees based on the sensorial properties
of the cup.
On its website, the company is referred to as an incubator for producers of specialty
coffees, a trader for specialty roasters, and an intermediary between roasters and producers. In
fact, they visit Peruvian farms twice a year to assist coffee-producing families in different aspects
of the production process. The company rewards the production of quality coffees and aims to
establish sustainable relationships with the producers. Ponte and Daviron call this a very small
niche: specialty coffee buyers seeking direct connection with producers (2005, 216). From the
start of my research in Peru, until I came back to Amsterdam, we communicated on occasions in
person and by mail. The company provided some input to the research proposal and brought me
in touch with her social network in the town where I started my fieldwork, which helped me to
enter the field. However, due to a number of reasons, this research project has been delayed for
almost four years.
The study of coffee is not new, actually, it is one of the most popular commodity chains
among social scientists, mainly because it is relatively easy to follow (Reichman 2008, 110).
However, the collaboration between social scientists and the coffee industry has emerged only
recently. According to Sarah Grant and Jo Breese in Standart Magazine3, the industry is
responsible for the cultural representation of producing countries and producers, in other words
for the knowledge and images used to inform consumers, which is a difficult job. Increasingly,
specialty coffee buyers visit the country of origin a few weeks a year, but misrepresentations of

2 Susana Jansen, conversation with author, October 8, 2018.

3 Sarah Grant and Jo Breese, Standart Magazine, 2017, 10, p.61.

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farmers are easily made4. Here, anthropologists who spend months and years conducting
fieldwork among producers could provide a much more nuanced image. The field trips that
buyers occasionally make are snapshots of a particular moment, rather than an accurate
representation of the lives and livelihoods of coffee producers. Within the limits of my fieldwork
and research, I strive to provide an accurate representation, specifically the insight into the
characteristics of production and producers that are important for consumers of specialty coffee.

Specialty Coffee: a Definition

Specialty coffee refers to beans that are produced in special geographic microclimates and have
unique flavor profiles, from particular farms in a specific location in a certain microclimate5.
Furthermore, it requires certain climatic conditions, such as soil, humidity and altitude, and
enhanced processing techniques and varietals. Together, these elements define the taste and
aroma of a coffee, also known as ‘cup profile’. The protocols of the SCA are the industry’s
standard to evaluate the quality of the green beans and identify the ‘cup profile’. In chapter three
I will elaborate more on such protocols.
Specialty coffees are almost exclusively arabica beans6 and comprise 27% of the total
market (Fischer, 2020). Overall, the market can be divided into three ‘Waves’ or segments each
having their own historical trajectory. Here, specialty coffee is often placed in the Second and
Third Waves. The First Wave is characterized by large-scale production on the premise of cost
minimization and the maximization of efficiency (Fischer 2019, 3). On the consumer side of the
chain, there was a general lack of attention and care for labor conditions and the livelihoods of
coffee farmers. Furthermore, coffee farmers have been presented as a symbol of exploitation in
global capitalism caused by unequal trade relationships between producer countries and
consumer countries. The second wave represented the emergence of the first niche markets after
the establishment of the SCA in 1975. Young urban professionals prioritized quality and
uniqueness over homogeneousness, and coffee firms responded accordingly (Roseberry 1996;
Reichman 2008). Roseberry suggested that coffee had become the beverage of postmodern
consumerism, signifying a break from the mass production of homogeneous commodities and
reflecting new urban social identities. Moreover, the Second Wave was characterized by a rising
moral concern among consumers about the social conditions in which coffee was produced that

4 Paige West (2012) argues that producers need to fit images of poverty and primitivity to give consumers the feeling
they consume ethically; how these images only reflect consumer identities, rather than representing producers.
5 “What is Specialty Coffee?”, SCA, 2023, https://sca.coffee/research/what-is-specialty-coffee.

6 There are two main types of coffee: coffea robusta and coffea arabica. Arabica is regarded as better in terms of
taste and quality.
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was ignored in the first wave. As part of the Second Wave, fair trade organizations guaranteed a
price minimum for producers.
The Third Wave emphasizes excellence in coffee through attention to every aspect of the
coffee-making process, from the sourcing of green coffee beans to the final cup. Third Wave
coffee must meet strict criteria, such as a cupping score of 86 or higher. Education, science,
technology and innovations play a central role in the pursuit of excellence. For instance, roasters
and buyers seek more exotic complex flavors in coffee varieties and explore newer ones7. Third
Wave consumers are better-educated coffee drinkers valuing artisanal brewing techniques and
have internalized the lexicons to describe taste and provenance. On the farm, people experiment
with new technologies, innovative practices, and processing. Within the Third Wave trade and
retail, ‘direct-trade coffees’ or ‘relationship coffees’ are growing niches, it entails personal
relationships between buyers, roasters and producers including short- medium-term contracts
(Fischer 2016). Direct trade has also been initiated as a tool to enhance coffee quality and
producers’ incomes and to establish regular communication but risks becoming a marketing
strategy (MacGregor et al. 2017, as cited in Quiñones-Ruiz 2020).

Benefits of Specialty Coffee: a Theoretical Debate on Value, Quality and Aspiration

Specialty coffee, and Third Wave coffee in particular, is considered a tool for development
because it is assumed to help poor farmers in the Global South and at the same time produce a
commodity that meets consumer demands in its international markets. According to Wollni and
Zeller (2007), the assumption that specialty coffee can provide a way out for coffee farmers who
saw their income declining as a result of the crisis in the coffee market rests on two observations:
1) contrary to the market for standard coffee, market segments for specialty coffee are growing;
2) consumers are prepared to pay a premium price. In 2016, the standard coffee price ranged
from 1.13 and 1.46 US dollars per pound, while exclusive quality green beans from special estates
routinely go for more than 20 dollars per pound (Fischer 2019). There is a discussion about what
exactly entices consumers to pay a premium price. Some argue that it is in fact the intrinsic
quality of the produce: “high prices for coffees are all about what is ‘in the cup’” (Fischer 2019).
Others however argue that premium prices are paid for the symbolic value of specialty coffee:
the fact that it can be linked to a specific estate or a farmer with a personal history, or the fact
that it represents a product grown in a sustainable and socially acceptable way (West 2012;
Fischer 2019). Irrespective of whether these factors actually trigger premium prices, there seems
to be no doubt that specialty coffee has the potential to create more added value than standard

7 The varietals Geisha and Heirloom are most valued for their potential cup profile.
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coffee. The question is how the added value spreads out through the production chain, and what
determines to what extent farmers benefit.
If it is all about the intrinsic quality of the produce, coffee growers in theory have a
powerful market position. Coffee growers control the material means of production to grow the
quality that the market demands: they have altitude, micro-climates, access to varietals, and the
knowledge of how to grow quality coffee (Fischer 2019). On the other hand, it is suggested that
in practice coffee growers, especially smallholders, may have limited access to the necessary
liquidities and information about consumer preferences and shifts therein (Wollni and Zeller
2007). Both are crucial as it takes farmers five years of planning to adjust production to new
market demands. If they do not adjust in time, oversupply, declining prices, and losses on their
investments in certain varieties and special technologies loom (Fischer 2019). To actually benefit
from higher market prices, it is assumed that producers should participate in new market
developments. And in order to make that possible, it would be necessary to make use of
marketing cooperatives (Bacon 2005).
If the added value of specialty coffee is mostly triggered by its narratives’ aspects, it
would mean that specialty coffee growers should shift their focus. According to Fischer (2019),
instead of concentrating on developing new varieties and improving flavor, they should elaborate
on the narrative aspects of their product, providing consumers with details of their estate, their
personal history and family, the authenticity of their product or production methods and
certification. For smallholding farmers, this would present serious challenges as they are not in
the business of marketing and do not have access to information about the strategies used by
retailers and baristas. Participation in marketing cooperatives and direct contacts between
cooperatives and those who sell to end consumers could provide the necessary input, but even
then, it would require substantial social and cultural capital to craft narratives and symbolic values
in a way that is understood in other cultural contexts (Fischer 2019).
The higher prices of specialty coffees are important drivers for the economic activities of
coffee farmers. Even more considering the structural conditions of radical uncertainty in which
coffee farmers try to survive. However, understanding the economic lives of ordinary people
(such as coffee farmers) requires more than looking at profits and money making (Narotzky and
Besnier 2014). One of the central insights of economic anthropology is that all economic activity
is ultimately driven by social and cultural values. While people may strategically try to maximize a
certain “good”, that “good” (which defines the ends of economic activity) is shaped by cultural
values (Reichmann 2008). In other words, the key question for anthropologists is not how people
try to rationally meet certain ends, but how and why they define those end goals in a specific way
(Reichman 2011, 37). According to Jackson (2011), given the context of the Peruvian coffee
farmers, a sense of hope”, a sense of a way out, is crucial to the ability to endure (as cited in
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Fischer 2014). Aspiration - a hope for the future informed by ideas about the good life - gives
direction to agency, the power to act and the sense of having control over one’s own destiny.
Both are core elements of well-being in affluent as well as economically deprived contexts
(Fischer 2014). Thus, what the concept of aspiration contributes to this thesis is that specialty
coffee, besides adding value to benefit capitalist markets, is also a means for farmers to aspire to a
better life within a context of limited resources.

Methodology and Positionality

The data and information presented in this thesis are based on ethnographic fieldwork executed
between January and April 2019 located in Central Peru. The fieldwork took place in eight
villages and one city, all located in the provinces Chanchamayo and Pangoa (department Junín)
and department Huancayo. Chanchamayo and Pangoa are part of ‘La Selva’ (‘Baja’ and ‘Alta’) and
Huancayo is part of La Sierra8. The majority of the data collection was done at privately owned
farms (varying in size from two to ten hectares) that were run by families. These ‘small-scale’
farms were both designated for the cultivation of cash crops (i.e., coffee) and for own
consumption. Most data came from the villages of Los Robles, Santa Ana (Selva Alta) and the
Valle Grande (La Sierra) where I spent the major part of my three-month fieldwork. Informal
conversations and interviews were held with the owners of the farms from these regions. To a
lesser degree, information was gathered from the interviews and informal conversations with
managers and members of coffee cooperatives in Pichanaki and Pangoa. Although I talked with
some women, my respondents were mostly men between the ages of twenty-five and seventy.
This can be explained by my positionality in the field (see heading positionality below).
The modes of data collection were a combination of semi-structured interviews, participant
observation, and ‘deep hanging out’ - a method coined by Clifford Geertz which refers to
immersing oneself as an anthropologist in a cultural group or social experience on an informal
level (Walmsley 2018, 277). I chose the proper form according to the setting and interlocutor. At
appointments with members of coffee cooperatives, I always conducted recorded semi-
structured interviews. At farms I visited for one or two hours, I was often accompanied by a
cooperative’s technician or representative. To secure the respondents’ safety and comfort, I
usually conducted interviews while the farmer was giving a walking tour of his plantation; with a
notebook, and sometimes we sat down to do recorded semi-structured interview. At the coffee
villages Los Robles, Santa Ana and Valle Grande, my stay lasted for about a week. Here, ‘deep
hanging out’ was preferred to cope with feelings of unease by the researcher and suspicion by the
interlocutor. Given the cultural and linguistic differences between me and the interlocutors, the

8 Peru is geographically divided into three main parts: La Selva (the jungle), La Sierra (the Andes), and La Costa (the
coast). People refer to these parts as these are distinctive; culturally, politically, and economically.
 12

objective was to establish trust. To achieve this, I participated in the families' daily activities, such
as meals, coffee-drinking, attending church, and so on. These shared experiences provided
opportunities to collect information and insights. For instance, I brought my Aeropress coffee
maker and hand grinder to exchange coffee-drinking habits with the families, which at times
opened up interesting topics of conversation. In addition joined the farmers on their chakras9
and offered them a helping hand. When staying with one family for an extended period, I made
arrangements to visit other families in the same village. Initially, I had planned to observe the
busy harvest days to gain a deeper understanding of the farm practices and dynamics between
workers and farmers and how they add value to their crops. However, my fieldwork was
scheduled for the wrong season, and I was unable to observe these activities.
In addition to the timing of my fieldwork, there were several other challenges and
limitations worth mentioning. Firstly, building trust with the community was a hurdle. My
Spanish language skills were limited during the first month of fieldwork, making it difficult for
me to approach people in Pichanaki and establish connections. However, with the help of
Sembrado Peru and a key informant, I was able to overcome this challenge and my Spanish
improved over time. Nevertheless, I wish I had interviewed a wider range of actors beyond just
coffee farmers but I lacked the confidence in language. Secondly, I visited eight different villages
and spoke with over thirty coffee farmers, but I wish I had spent more time in a single village to
better understand the social dynamics. The longest stay was one week, and just when things were
getting interesting, I had to leave. If I were given another chance, I would stay at least a month in
one village to gain a deeper understanding. Thirdly, it was challenging to approach women, who
seemed shy. During meals, men and women ate separately, which I assumed was different when I
wasn't present. The consequence of these gender dynamics are an overrepresentation of male
farmers. Lastly, my European appearance led farmers to assume that I was a buyer, which made it
difficult to explain my research.

Ethics
One important aspect when discussing ethics in anthropology is the concerns of privacy and
protection of the subjects (informed consent) on the one hand, and the confidentiality of the
research, on the other. Obtaining informed consent is easier said than done. Some argue that
informed consent is not suitable for anthropological research at all, along the lines of the
following arguments: it is difficult to obtain. It does not lend itself easily to methods like
participant observation. Sometimes it cannot be explained to the subjects, or it may be very

9 Word locals use to refer to a “farm”.

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impractical to acquire (Fluehr-Lobban 1994, 5-7). Strictly speaking, it makes doing fieldwork
quite impossible.
For my own research, I only used verbal informed consent during recorded interviews.
For the less obtrusive methods like ‘deep hanging out’ that lasted over the course of a period, I
made sure that my introduction was clear enough: my role, research goal, intention, and
protection. Even that was sometimes hard to comprehend for the people I was talking to. When I
stayed over the course of days at one particular family, I reminded them they were being studied
by obviously taking notes during conversations, or, inviting them for a ‘formal’ interview. I did
this deliberately with the majority of my informants to take advantage of recording that I could
re-listen, transcribe and interpret. Once, I made a farmer sign a written informed consent before
I stayed at his house. The formality made him suspicious. He agreed but was very reluctant to
provide me with information. It was hard to regain his trust.
Although I took the official guidelines of informed consent in academic research loosely
and adaptive, it does not mean I cannot protect my research subjects: “Protection is typically
afforded after the fact in the report-writing […] phase where community identity, informant
names, and other detailed information may be withheld or altered” (Fluehr-Lobban 1994, 4). In
this thesis, I will withhold names and replace them with pseudonyms when I write about persons,
places and producer organizations. This will be sufficient to secure the anonymity of the subjects
when the thesis will be published.

Outline
In the first Chapter I will argue that the abolishment of the International Coffee Agreement
(ICA) and the neoliberal politics caused a price and supply crisis in producing countries. It
challenged the coffee sector to restructure itself into niche markets to cope with the loss of
quality criteria and price quota. After the liberation of the coffee market, one of the
opportunities small-scale farmers were provided with was to upgrade the quality of their crops so
they could meet the consumer demands and in return secure a price minimum that creates the
stability of the ICA-era.
In the second chapter, I explore the motivations of farmers to produce specialty coffee.
These are not only financial but also rooted in ideas and identities related to hard work and pride.
By tracing the aspirations of specialty coffee farmers, and what futures they imagine, I describe in
this chapter how farmers see specialty coffee as a trajectory to attain a better life for themselves
and their children that previous generations of farmers were not able to obtain.
Chapter three discusses different steps of the cultivation process. It shows that in the
transformation towards high-quality production, farmers relate to ‘specialty’ in terms of terroir
and production techniques. That is, the choices made throughout the production and processing
 14

phase and the recognition that microclimates and altitude make a coffee ‘special’ and distinct.
However, they lack the lexicon and cultural capital to understand specialty in terms of taste and
characteristics found in the cup, which creates gaps of knowledge between producers and their
potential consumers. In addition, the cupping score represents ‘objective quality’ and commands
the price. The focus on ‘objective’ quality forces farmers to focus on practices that correlate
directly with the cupping score; while the values and practices that are important to farmers to
cope with the challenges are not rewarded within this framework. In effect, to be rewarded small-
scale farmers are dependent on access to knowledge and resources that are necessary to meet
quality standards. Those who succeed have partnerships with buyers or are part of a producer
organization that is well-integrated into the buyer/consumer market. Those who struggle,
complain about the absence of productive support from experts, they complain about the
absence of buyers, to supply or to be informed about the market.
The last chapter discusses the communication of the Third Wave coffee brands and how
they play into the values of consumers. Accordingly, I use my data to evaluate the gaps between
worlds of both ends of the coffee chain. I conclude my thesis with suggestions of how these
gaps could be bridged.
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Chapter One: Political-Economic Context of the Coffee Sector

The lives of Peruvian coffee growers cannot be understood in a historical vacuum; on the
contrary, they must be considered in a context of colonization, political and social-economic
policies, violence, and globalism. In this chapter, I illustrate the deeper causes of the crises
Peruvian coffee farmers currently face with a brief historical analysis of the emergence of coffee
production during the colonial era up to the neoliberal turn under president Fujimori. The
liberalization of the market coincided with the abolishment of the International Coffee
Agreement (ICA), the regulation that protected coffee growers in producing countries through a
price minimum. In response to the free market, producer and consumer countries sought
alternative trade networks which ultimately led to certification schemes and the establishment of
cooperatives as part of a ‘compensating double movement’. In short, it sought to replace the
price regulations of the ICA (Topik et al. 2010, 5). Nowadays, between 30 and 40 per cent of the
total Peruvian coffee production is traded through these producer cooperatives. As a result of
these new trades and certifications, Peru became Latin America’s second-largest producer of
certified coffees (Tulet 2010). The emergence of the later specialty coffee markets in Peru was
embedded in the trade networks of the former ‘compensating double movement’.

Figure 1. Map of the department of Junín.

Junín, the department where I conducted my research, was one of the first coffee regions
of Peru and is located in central Peru. As shown in Figure 1, it comprises nine provinces:
Chanchamayo, Chupaca, Concepción, Huancayo, Jauja, Junín, Satipo, Tarma and Yauli. The
provinces Chanchamayo and Satipo form part of the Amazon jungle. Provinces further to the
west are located on La cordillera de Los Andes, the mountain ridge that crosses a large part of the
South American continent. The height, especially relevant for the growth of coffee, ranges from
 16

450 meters above sea level (masl) in the lower parts of Satipo to 4415 masl in the higher parts of
Yauli. Coffee production occurs on the eastern mountain slopes of the Andes and is
concentrated in Chanchamayo and the western part of Satipo. It accounts for a fifth of the total
production10. The department of Junín has a population of 1.36 million of which about a third
lives in rural areas11.

Colonial Era
Coffee crops entered Peru in the 19th century when it was brought from Ecuador by the
Europeans. The largest (and best-known) producer was called The Peruvian Company, a British
company that owned 500.000 hectares of land across the Selva Central12. Throughout the
century another nineteen colonists settled to produce coffee in the region (Santos-Granero and
Barclay 1998, 59). It was from the beginning of the 20th century when coffee became
economically more relevant. The production became a vector for the expansion of land
occupation and it contributed to the integration of the Selva Central into the Peruvian economy.
Although the urban areas in the Selva Central are currently organized around agriculture as a
whole, the cacao and coffee cash crops stand out. As an illustration, Pichanaki, one of the coffee
towns in the Selva Central, has a statue of a coffee cup on the main square of the town, and on
the sides of the square one can find bungalow huts where people drink coffee. Each February,
the local coffee industry starts to become visible, camionetas13 packed with the first lots of the
coffee harvest arrive from the nearby villages and the coffee beans are being dried on the streets.
Coffee also contributes to a series of nonagricultural activities such as the emergence of coffee
consumption, real estate, labor, and capitalist markets. This influence on nonagricultural activities
becomes especially visible during harvest seasons (Santos-Granero and Barclay 1998, 112).
The expansion of land occupation and agricultural production during the interbellum of
the 20th century led to a significant influx of wage workers from the Andean highlands as well as
from outside the country. In a semi-feudal system, these seasonal migrant workers quickly settled
and started producing for hacienda owners who taught them cultivation practices and know-how
as a means to expand their plantations14. After the Second World War, the migratory flow into
the Selva increased, and when the British company left the country, immigrants took advantage

10 Gaspar Nolte, Peru Coffee Annual (2018).

11 SINEACE, Caracterización de la Región de Junín (2020) p. 4.

12 the Selva Central is a natural reserve in the jungle in the province Chanchamayo, Junín.

13 Word locals use to refer to a “truck”.

14 Jane Collins (1984). For example, near Cuzco, migrants had gained permission to plant coffee on marginal
hacienda lands, in exchange for which they worked a given number of days per year for the hacienda owner.
 17

of the company’s departure to purchase the land they were selling (Tulet 2010, 135).
Subsequently, between 1964 and 1984, the agricultural area in the Selva Central expanded from
74,610 hectares to 134,302 hectares (Santos-Granero and Barclay 1998, 104). Coffee as a
commodity in the Selva Central region developed itself as a stable market and circulated in well-
established trade networks, contributing to improvements in infrastructure and logistics in remote
areas. Additionally, the production benefited from the accumulation of knowledge and
management from successive periods of colonization in earlier decades (Santos-Granero and
Barclay 1998, 105-106).

Agrarian Reform

The agrarian reform in 1969 caused a major historical shift in the distribution of land ownership.
The reform was led by Juan Valesco who expropriated landed estates and reorganized these into
cooperatives of varying types (Crabtree 2002, 138). Properties and land of former colonists were
provided to collective peasant communities under the guidance of state-owned cooperatives that
represented these collective farms in the parliament. The reform gave peasants land ownership
for their cultivation of cash crops and subsistence farming. According to Tulet (2010), the reform
eventually stalled the expansion of land; although simultaneously the proportion of small-scale
farms (less than ten hectares) kept on expanding up to 78% of the total number of plantations
(Santos-Granero and Barclay 1998, 112). Another contributing factor to this land expansion
could have been a rise in the world market price of coffee that correlated with the migration
influx in the 1970s (Collins 1984, 429). Irrespective of whether this expansion was attracted by
policies or external factors, in theory, the agrarian reform policies favored small-scale farmers and
gave them a political voice. Loans were granted by the Agrarian Bank at favorable interest rates,
and, within the framework of the ICA,15 (Diaz 2006, as cited in Tulet 2010, 134), the Peruvian
government had some control over the exports and prices within the global market. Through
ICA regulations, the export funneled the profits from export quotas to the coffee cooperatives,
which exported 80% of the country's production in the 1970s. Later that decade, the agrarian
reform model failed and it was abandoned because the system failed to provide adequate services
to the sector. Coffee cooperatives, with sales guaranteed through ICA, made no effort to improve

15The ICA was an agreement between producing and consuming country, that set a minimum price for green coffee
and a guaranteed export quota. 80% of the total global trade was managed by the ICA.
 18

their operations, they were often characterized by corruption, nepotism, and mismanagement16
(Tulet 2010, 135). Collins illustrates how policies of the agrarian reform were primarily beneficial
for the government itself as follows:

[The] cooperativization of peasant coffee producers was seen as an effective way to create
vertical linkages within one sector of the economy, thus defusing class tensions; to
eliminate abuses within traditional systems of production and commercialization without
invoking radical solutions; and to channel coffee profits into the hands of the
government rather than into those of private interests. […] With the institution of the
cooperatives, the sale of coffee to other parties was made illegal, and these restrictions
were enforced to the degree possible. The response of the coffee intermediaries ranged
from attempting to maintain a strong black market in coffee to sabotage of cooperative
infrastructure and attempts to disrupt the transport of coffee. The cooperatives held the
support of the producers, however, by paying a higher price for the coffee than their
private competitors. Within a few years of the formation of the cooperatives, the
dynamic of capital accumulation in the valley had changed drastically. The margin of
profit to be gained by transporting coffee out of the valley was now channelled into the
hands of the government […] The government, rather than private interests, benefited
from the surplus value extracted in this manner. (Collins 1984, 431).

Given the history of alleged corruption in state organizations and institutions, most
policies affected the agricultural sector negatively, especially for smallholders whose incomes were
dependent on domestic and international markets Crabtree (2002). During the same era, conflicts
between the Shining Path guerrilla group and the government were taking place that culminated
in a civil war. The violence had a significant impact in rural areas, particularly affecting the coffee-
growing regions in Selva Central and Junín department's Andean villages. The war-induced great
economic and social insecurities, including the obstruction of economic activities and
institutions, forced recruitment from both sides of the conflict, and execution and displacement
of the rural population. Samuel, one of the coffee farmers in my sample who grew up in the
Andean part of Junín, commented on the impact of the civil war on his community:

“People were strongly affected in these areas, which is why they began to migrate to the
city and leave. This is because they felt safer there, and away from both state actors and
terrorist sects. Terrorists would come and kill people, and then the army would come and
kill more people. That's why people wanted to migrate. From then on, communities have
been losing population. Before that, there were 38 active community members and now

16 See Jane Collins (1984, 424) for a critique on how coffee farmers were disadvantaged by state-owned centralized
cooperatives that were the legal traders of their coffee. He blames corruption and mismanagement on the officials
of the organization, examples are: no transparency on the price farmers are getting paid, lack of technical assistance,
lack of access to credit and lack of provision fertilizers.
 19

there are only 15. Whole families escaped […] and became accustomed to the
city.” (Informal interview, February 6, 2019)

The economic crisis and violence that lasted almost a decade led to a decrease in
investment in capital and labor by coffee growers, loss of supply markets, and deterioration of
coffee quality (Tulet 2010). This era of instability was the backdrop for the entrance of a new
political ideology.

Transition towards the Market Economy

In the wake of the end of the cold war, world coffee economies, especially the Latin American
ones, have been seriously affected by the spread of free-market ideologies. the growth of
multinationals, and anti-state globalism. In Peru, the face of the new ideology was Alberto
Fujimori. Peru had suffered from twenty years of economic crisis, hyperinflation, and ten years
of political violence. Fujimori positioned himself as a political outsider (“anti-politico”) and under
his coup (the “Autogolpe”), he managed to marginalize the congress and the judiciary which gave
him absolute power (Drinot 2016, 16). With the support of the international community (World
Bank and International Monetary Fund), Fujimori aimed at a restructuring of the economy along
neoliberal principles: a short-term stabilization and a long-term “structural adjustment” program.
On one hand, the stabilization, also known as the ‘Fujishock’, led to the replacement of the
Peruvian inti by the sol to correct the hyperinflation and the rise in domestic interest rates. On
the other hand, the ‘structural adjustment program’ included the liberalization of trade in which
(international) market relations were privileged; state interventions were much reduced and
individual land titling was propagandized. Furthermore, the program raised taxes and curtailed
state enterprises by privatizing their services. Despite the high-interest rates and a lack of control
over the liquidity of producers (that eventually led to their bankruptcy), the role of the state-
controlled financial institutions was vital for farmers to gain access to loans and mortgages for
buying farmland. Fujimori dissolved the Agrarian Bank, due to an in-returnable debt of one
billion dollars and also because the bank had become a nexus for corruption (Crabtree 2002).
The dissolution of the Agrarian Bank put an end to agricultural price support in the name of the
free play of market forces (Crabtree 2002).
The free market and privatization had major consequences for the coffee sector. It was
hoped that private financial institutions would take over the responsibilities of the Agrarian Bank,
but they appeared to be reluctant to lend money to producers and cooperatives. The coffee state
cooperatives lost access to funding and disappeared. Private companies took over the coffee
export business, and coffee farmers were forced to sell their coffee to these private companies,
 20

although the state cooperatives paid better prices17. In 1995, the market economy in Peru became
more explicit in agriculture. The land titling program was implemented under the Land Law and
presented as compensation after reduced state intervention in 1990 (Crabtree 2002, 142; Tulet
2010, 135). The collective state-owned units —inherited from the agrarian reform— became
available for individuals or families. In principle, everyone was able to access land through
mortgages. This program reflected the idea that the provision of private assets would be a key
element to development. Yet, only half of the planned titles were given out and mainly to
producers in the coastal areas. Between 1990 and 2010, a process of re-concentration of land
ownership on the coast occurred, facilitated by the laws that put an end to the agrarian reform of
the military government. Thus, the market liberalization privatized state enterprises that used to
(albeit imperfectly) support the agrarian sector. Consequently, smallholders in the Selva and the
Andes lost their access to credit and price support. In addition, they had to compete with
imported commodities that changed the domestic consumption patterns of the urban
population.
Under the International Coffee Agreement (1961-1989) producing countries regulated
the export quota and secured minimum prices for coffee producers. Its abolishment shifted the
bargaining power towards consuming countries and allowed them to dominate actors in
producing countries, especially farmers and their governments (Daviron and Ponte 2005, 321).
As a result, five multinationals gained control of sixty per cent of the total coffee trade (see
Talbot 1997). Secondly, market liberalization exposed farmers to volatile coffee prices. As shown
in Figure 2, there were periods of high prices in 1996 and 2012, followed by a consistent low. In
spite of fluctuations, the post-ICA era has been stipulated as the ‘coffee paradox’18 resulting in a
buyer-driven chain
The impact of market fluctuations and rising production costs on small-scale farmers
became visible when the coffee leaf rust (emileia vastratrix) affected the whole coffee production
of Latin America. In 2013 and 2014, the leaf rust affected 290.000 hectares (50-70% of the total
plantations), of which 80 hectares in Peru were severely devastated19. Smallholders were the most
affected due to the lack of financial resilience: coffee trees on 65% of the small-scale farms were
older than twenty years, which made them non-resistant to the coffee leaf rust. Five years later
many producers in the central highlands were still faced with financial challenges20. The recovery

17 Personal communication with the manager of a cooperative in Pichanaki, January 9, 2019.

18The ‘coffee paradox’ indicates the downfall of farm-gate prices for green coffee meanwhile the demand in
consuming countries underwent a revival including a rise in the price for coffee (Daviron and Ponte 2005, 21).
19 Marienella Ortiz, “Café: Producción Histórica Local se recuperará a partir de 2017,” El Comercio, August 28, 2015.

20 Low Prices Impact Peruvian Producers. Gaspar Nolte, Peru Coffee Annual, 2019.
 21

Figure 2. The Global Price, Consumption and Production Developments of coffee.

programs of the Peruvian government in the aftermath of this event have been accused of
corruption and nepotism by different representatives of the agricultural sector, who argued that
the majority of the money was not distributed to smallholders.

The Emergence of Niches

Out of dissatisfaction with the state of the market, actors from both producer and consumer
countries sought alternatives to improve the coffee chain. Producers suffered from a volatile
market and the absence of state support. And consumers became increasingly concerned about
the fairness of production and ecological conditions. These concerns led to a movement that is
known as the ‘compensation double movement’. Alternative trade networks emerged out of this
movement and certified coffees and specialty niche markets were promoted in producing
countries. With the support of non-governmental organizations, cooperatives organized by
coffee farmers under fair trade principles took a leap in the 2000s. A manager of a cooperative in
Pichanaki elaborated on the establishment of coffee cooperatives in the Selva Central:

“Before the crisis [in 1990s], the previous state cooperatives had many problems and did
not function well. Producers formed organizations to have access to markets and several
cooperatives were founded during this period. Because there was a new trend of
founding cooperatives, and it was almost unique in Pichanaki: this cooperative was the
first one here, and was followed by more cooperatives afterwards. Right now, there are
 22

between 15 and 20 cooperatives in Pichanaki. Our values and practices include

transparency, identification with the cooperative, honesty with the farmers, and we always
facilitate meetings with members and workers for communication (Interview, January 8,
2019).”

Thus, alternative networks under the umbrella of fair trade sought to bypass the
mainstream market, dominated by a few large transnational companies, implementing
certification schemes. Certified coffees were a way to protect coffee growers from market
fluctuations by providing a minimum price. In a sense, it can be argued that fair trade substituted
the ICA quota system as a guarantor of a fair distribution of value along the coffee chain
(Daviron and Ponte 2005, 289). Additionally, the new markets resemble the era in which NGOs
have taken over the responsibilities of the state, which took a step back in policies. On the one
hand, the overall impact is marginal as fair trade constitutes a much smaller share of the total
trade than the ICA did. On the other hand, the coffee market is one of the only major
agricultural commodities in which small-scale producers are still able to compete with large
businesses and we will see in the next chapter that niche markets “provide livelihoods for many
people around the world” (Reichman 2018, 258).
 23

Chapter Two: Stability in Precarious Times

On a Sunday, my key informant Gabriel and I drove to his family’s farm to have lunch
with his sister and his mother. His family turned coffee into a profitable business; they
operate independently, own coffee shops in the region and sell their coffee with specialty
grades to buyers in Europe and Asia. In the car, at some point, we talked about the
mental health of people in the Netherlands. I said most millennials are depressed because
life has become too safe and convenient and they do not have any problems to deal with.
Gabriel laughed out loud and said that everyone in Peru is depressed because they have
too many problems they cannot deal with (Interaction, January 24, 2019).

At the beginning of chapter one, I noted that Junín is one of the oldest coffee-growing
regions in Peru and that Pichanaki is a hub for the agricultural sector, specifically coffee. My
fieldwork hometown consisted of approximately 40,000 residents along the Perene River and is a
regional trade center, along with other smaller towns, that my translator referred to as the “wild
west”. The roads were dusty, with a lot of traffic and honking, and the houses lacked aesthetic
appeal and were often unfinished. There was a lot of litter on the street that was occasionally
burned. There were packs of stray dogs roaming the streets and one could find a drunk person
on every corner early in the morning. Farmers from the surrounding area go to Pichanaki once
or twice a month to purchase supplies such as food, fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, and crop
seeds. There are also various agricultural banks and financiers for loans. And of course, there is
coffee trading between merchants. The number of coffee farmer cooperatives in Pichanaki has
grown to more than a dozen. At the beginning of my fieldwork, I contacted three cooperatives
and asked if I could visit and interview some of their members. The cooperatives were
established during the rise of alternative trade networks. They take on activities that farmers are
unable to perform on their own.
It was through these cooperatives that I established contacts. I was often transported to
the villages on the back of a motorcycle or sometimes in a car along dirt roads through the
jungle. The rides usually lasted between two to four hours from the city. Due to the rainy season,
the roads were often blocked by landslides. This led to a motorcycle breaking down once.
Another time a car ride was delayed for more than 30 hours. According to farmers in one village,
the number of landslides in recent years had increased significantly, they could see the long
brown streaks of mud in the mountains' view.
The coffee farms I visited were mostly located on the eastern slopes of the Andes, in the
Selva Central, often referred to as the jungle. One village I visited was located in another region,
Huancayo which is considered to be Sierra. In the Selva, the coffee-producing families I spoke to
live on altitudes between 1300 and 1800 meters above sea level (masl) and form a small centro
 24

poblado21. The four different villages I visited had at least a tiny center with a square, a school, a
church and a bodega22. Some farmers focus on coffee, while others also grow vegetables and fruits
and hold cattle. The scale of each farm in these jungle villages usually comprises between three
and ten hectares. The villages in the Sierra are located south of the Selva, about ten hours from
Pichanaki, the coffee is grown on altitudes between 2000 and 2400 masl. The Sierra is often
considered to be poorer than the jungle and the coast for different reasons. One of them is that
they are more remotely located from urban areas and the infrastructure is less developed. In
comparison to the jungle, the villages in the Sierra until recently depended on subsistence
farming and farmers sold their surplus on local markets once per week. The area is less known
for its coffee. Therefore, coffee is produced on smaller plots (half up to three hectares) as people
still grow other crops and hold cattle, pigs, chickens and guinea pigs. Another cash crop they try
to grow is avocado trees. I have spent one week in one of these mountain villages and to me, it
appeared that the communities were closely related on the basis of kinship, more than the ones
in the Selva.
In the previous chapter, it was displayed how the abolishment of the ICA has weakened
the economic position of coffee producers and producing countries in the global commodity
chain and exposed smallholders to market fluctuations. Furthermore, I showed that state
institutions were replaced by private institutions and alternative trade networks. The position of
farmers was negatively affected in a number of ways as private institutions such as banks did not
prioritize the agricultural sector. Thus, for example, access to loans for mortgages became
difficult to obtain. Non-governmental initiatives boosted alternative trade networks that
essentially aimed to replace the ICA regime, despite their marginal market share. Finally,
according to Crabtree (2002), poverty relief programs of the Fujimori regime (to compensate for
the privatization), did not benefit producers who were integrated into the market economy.
These developments make evident that the ‘neoliberal turn’ or ‘market reform’ has set
conditions of instability and uncertainty that have become the norm for small-scale farmers in
Peru. The reality shows that times of crises and uncertainty may not be exceptional and temporal.
In fact, periods of stability, such as the era of economic growth and welfare expansion that
followed World War II in North America and Europe may be historical anomalies. This point
suggests that uncertainty and instability are inherent to a capitalist structure, experienced by many
people in developing countries whether it be on a systemic or individual level (see Li 2014). On
the other hand, “experts and governments insist that the crisis is an “exceptional” situation, an
interlude before things get back to normal, for many people around the world, the experience of

21 Word locals use to refer to a “village”.

22 Word locals use to refer to a “grocery store”.

 25

chaos and permanent vital insecurity is the situation that designs the field in which they need to
play” (Narotzky and Besnier 2014, 7-8). The field of ‘experienced chaos and permanent
insecurity’ in which we need to play, allows us to see the economic lives and action through a lens
of “crises” — a condition in which permanent uncertainty is experienced as normality by
ordinary people. In this context, the promise of specialty coffees plays into the hopes of people
that desire an escape from that reality.

Crises and economic activities

Samuel and I were about to arrive in the Andean valley after a 30-hour drive. Samuel, born and
raised in the valley, is an agronomist who runs a coffee association with forty producers. He
explained the reason why they have been devoting themselves to the production of specialty
coffee since 2017. Historically, the village has been very secluded from other areas due to the lack
of infrastructure. He remembered that as a child when he and his family needed to go to
Huancayo, they had to go on foot, which took them three days to arrive. He adds:

“[In the past] there was no communication, there was no internet, which are the basics to
develop now. On the other side [where he points finger], there were no roads, so no
access to these plots […] We need much more investment around here. I think that these
commercial opportunities [specialty coffee] that we are developing are going to allow us
to create more communication, create better living conditions” (Informal conversation,
February 8, 2019).

While we were driving through the mountains, I observed a large number of abandoned
houses and plots and during my stay, I noticed that the majority of the people were elderly. I was
told by an elderly woman: “The same day the children finish their secondary school, they leave
the valley to move to the city.” Samuel explained to me that although people still migrate, their
reasons have changed; in the past, people migrated due to civil war, while currently, people leave
the countryside due to poverty conditions and the lack of economic and social opportunities.
The precarious conditions seriously affect the livelihoods of families and the local communities
as a whole. According to Samuel, the population of the valley is forty per cent of what it ever
was. The valley’s coffee association of forty coffee producers sold some specialty coffee in 2018
for a good price that provided a new source of income for the communities. While the
association planned to invest in volume and quality, he hoped that the new generation sees a
future in the new markets.

Scholars have recorded the ways in which smallholders are concerned with improving
their lives, exploring new opportunities, and pursuing more secure livelihoods for themselves and
 26

their children (Sick 2008; Jaffee 2007; Martinez-Torres 2006; Tucker 2008, as cited in Fischer and
Victor 2014). This chapter is concerned with coffee families aspiring for more stability in times
of crisis. In the second part of this chapter, I illustrate how farmers perceive specialty coffee as a
means to strive towards a better future which is defined by precarious times and limited
resources. First, I present different strategies that are used to cope with insecure conditions.

“Café es para sobrevivir, para saciar los antojos que tenemos, nada más” 23

In the Selva of Junín, conventional coffee has been rejected as a viable source of income to make
a living from. After a peak in 2010 which attracted Andean peasants and producers to migrate to
the coffee region, many farmers now seem to walk away from coffee. Since the coffee price has
been consistently low over the past ten years, many people complain about the market price and
few have faith that the price will ever go up. During my fieldwork, the street price for
conventional coffee was more or less 5 soles per kilo of green coffee24 in comparison to the 10
soles per kilo in 201025. At the same time, the cost of production had been going up, and in 2019
losses in the coffee sector were forecasted by Junta Nacional del Café (JNC) for the next four
years26.

Growing coffee involves hard work and comes with uncertainties. Coffee farmers value
the suffering as agricultores and they do not perceive coffee as a way to become rich. Yet, they are
frustrated that their efforts are not rewarded with a price that reflects their struggles. Besides the
economic challenges, coffee producers are faced with social, and environmental issues, and some
farms still deal with the aftermath of the leaf-rust disease of 2013 and 2014 (see chapter one),
among other fungal plant diseases that affect their incomes. Furthermore, heavy rainfalls or
droughts, and the absence of a proper infrastructure threaten yields and logistics on a social level.
Moreover, the lack of opportunities in education makes rural life unattractive for younger people.
These issues present coffee farmers with many dilemmas: How to cope with the fluctuations in
the market? Do I grow other cash crops besides my coffee plants or do I focus on the one?
Should I sell part of my harvest to the cooperatives or do I wait till middlemen offer a slightly
better price? Which other crops are more profitable? Should I replace my coffee plants with these
crops knowing next year the market might change? Shall I sell my labor as an additional source
of income? How profitable is producing coca leaves? How do I calculate my income from three

23 “Coffee is to just survive, to satisfy our cravings, nothing more.” - A commonly used phrase by farmers.

24 5 soles is 1.25 euros. One kilo of green kilo is similar to 0.75 kilos of roasted coffee.

25 Personal communication with farmers who started producing coffee in 2010 due to the favorable market.

26 Junta Nacional del Café, “La Caficultura Peruana Está en Riesgo Por Bajos Precios y Altos Costos de
Producción,” Cafetalero Magazine, March/April 2019, 10.
 27

months’ harvest over the next year? Shall I invest in more coffee plants, or buy an extra hectare?
Or do I sell my land and pursue a better life in the city?27
While specialty coffee is understood by coffee farmers and associations such as Samuel’s
as a means to escape poverty and cope with the volatile market, there are alternative coping
strategies. On the lower altitudes, where specialty coffee cannot be produced, coffee crops have
been abandoned and replaced by other cash crops with a higher value. For example, one coffee
farmer in the selva baja (lower jungle) converted his coffee crops into ginger due to the favorable
prices of that moment. Growing multiple crash crops is a common survival strategy to distribute
the risks of market fluctuations. The loss of coffee can be compensated with the profit of other
crops such as yuka or ginger. While some families remained in the campo, others decided -or were
forced by an in-returnable debt with high interests- to sell their land properties. Regardless of the
outcome, the process of abandoning coffee production was accelerated by the leaf-rust disease in
2014 which killed many smallholders' crops.
As the opening vignette of this chapter shows, urbanization tends to be a more common
choice among the new generations who move to the city to study a degree and to become a
professional28. While some farmers explicitly expressed their skepticism about migrating to cities,
adolescents may perceive life in the city as an attractive perspective, both on a social and
economic level. Additionally, they may adapt more easily. Both the older and younger people I
spoke with argued that higher education was the only possibility for upward social mobility and
the best way to escape the suffering and poverty that is associated with living in the countryside.
The National Center For Strategic Planning (CEPLAN) forecasts that the urban population will
increase from 50% up to 88% of the total population in Peru29. Urbanization as a response to
the crises in rural areas may threaten the livelihoods of rural communities even more.
Another possibility to cope with the situation of instability is the coca economy. In Junín,
the production and distribution of coca occurs close to Satipo and Pangoa. Given that it is the
most profitable agricultural sector of Peru (Crabtree 2002), it provides an alternative to coffee on
the one hand. At first sight, the coca economy is not visible and few people talk about it.
However, “the majority [of people] are in coca” and “coca is profitable”, said two coffee farmers
I spoke with in Los Robles, a village two hours from Satipo. Another farmer near Pangoa
considered installing one hectare of coca; his uncle also produced some coca and he calculated

27 All of those questions came up during the conversations with multiple farmers.

28 Business administration, agronomy and medicines are the most popular studies. In general, people are unfamiliar
with social sciences.
29“Peru: 35 million people projected to live in urban areas by 2050,” Andina: Agencia Peruana de Noticias, Lima, May 2,
2023 https://andina.pe/ingles/noticia-peru-35-million-people-projected-to-live-in-urban-areas-
by-2050-928032.aspx.
 28

out loud what his profits were going to be. On the other hand, the coca industry threatens
farmers as they struggle to recruit pickers during harvest season because working on a coca
plantation is about three times more lucrative. In addition, coca puts organic coffee production at
risk due to the use of glyphosate, herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides to generate high
productivity in coca leaf cultivation30.
The final strategy I would like to discuss is the use of alternative coffee markets, such as
fair trade and organic certifications. Over the past two decades, these markets have proven to be
a more reliable source of income for coffee farmers compared to the conventional market. In my
sample group, many farmers sold coffee under these certifications and some even accumulated
multiple certifications. While this approach seemed to be successful for some families, opinions
about the value of these certifications were mixed. Some felt that the bonus was too marginal and
that not all producer organizations fairly distribute the added value back to the farmers. Others
were more positive, as they didn't require significant investments, thus helping to keep
production costs low.

Coffee values and aspirations

Despite the challenges in the campo, there are certain aspects of it that are meaningful to farmers.
There is a sense of pride in their efforts to make a living from coffee and agriculture. They value
their landholding, labor, and growing organic food. Additionally, coffee is part of their culture of
cultivation given the long history of production. People who own coffee farms at high altitudes
within diverse microclimates and landscapes have the opportunity to produce coffees with
distinctive cup profiles. The specialty market values taste, uniqueness and high quality, giving
these farmers the advantage to make a living from coffee in which their work ethics can
potentially be rewarded with high stable prices.

Ines, a 56-year-old widow in Santa Ana, lost her husband due to a traffic accident. She
expressed the virtue of hard work on the farm and perceives coffee as part of her tradition:
“When my husband passed away, everyone told me: you have got to sell your chakra! Have you
become crazy? I said my children live and eat here. Where am I going to?” She felt attached to
her chakra: “Last year I went to Pichanaki to work, but no! Pichanaki is very far for me [three
hours from her village], I stay in my campo.” According to her, coffee is important. She also grows
other things, nonetheless coffee is the most important crop despite the low market price. “It is
part of our culture; we are familiar with how to grow it and it is a product that does not require
much investment.” Every day she works from eight o’clock until five o’clock in the afternoon.

30 Norka Peralta Liñán, La Lucha del Café Contra la Hoja de Coca en el Vraem, Salud con Lupa, June 18, 2021.
 29

She taught her children to work hard to make sure they are able to live independently and cope
with difficult situations.

Alberto, a 28-year-old farmer in Los Robles, wished that I would write about the farmers'
work ethic and livelihood conditions: “We all look older than we are because we have to work
extra hours under the sun, rain and the food is not sufficient. It becomes visible in your own life:
look at my scars. Every farmer suffers physically. I would like to be fat and obese but I simply
cannot. When I leave, who am I going to be? These [hard work] are principles of a farmer. You
simply need to work like you are burning in your campo”.

Coffee farmers who define the ethics and principles of hard work as important values of
what it means to be farmers are attracted to a market that rewards these merits. In a sense, the
specialty market rewards objective quality that is (at least partially) accomplished by meritocratic
principles. On the contrary, the niche market tends to move towards a tendency of ‘the winner-
takes-it-all’ (Fischer 2019, 15). While not all values will be commensurable and translated into
monetary capital, the specialty markets that also prioritize transparency and connectivity
throughout the value chain provide the possibility that the reality experienced by farmers can
reach consumers. Edgar, a 34-year-old farmer in the Sierra, expressed his concern about how
consumers need to understand that the quality they pay for is a result of hard work, struggle and
suffering: “You can ask people in Europe: ‘Where does this coffee come from?’ You can tell: it
mostly comes from the Sierra, from Acobamba, Huancayo. There are people who suffer, struggle
for their families, but as they are being guided [by engineers, buyers], they understand that they
will have good quality [at the end of the day]. They grow, work, struggle, in order to be paid a
good price”.
The concept of aspiration is a useful concept to inquire about the motivations behind the
economic lives of ordinary people. Motivations often go beyond mere income and accumulation
of capital. According to Fischer (2014, 173), coffee producers construct their aspirations in the
difficult circumstances in which they find themselves […] It is an imperfect but valued means to
realize their desires for a better life; it is tied up with hopes, dreams, and desires that go beyond
mere income.” Farmers aspire for something more for themselves and their children; these
expectations are designed by the objective and subjective possibilities to project life into the
future (Narotzky and Besnier, 2014). The struggles of farming coffee are part of the job.
However, when they project their lives in the future, they strive for conditions with more luxury
and less labor-intensive work, suffering and insecurities. These aspirations can be both rational
and morally driven. What follows are some excerpts of conversations in which coffee farmers
linked (specialty) coffee to their aspirations.
 30

Alejandro, a 38-year-old peasant farmer, lived with his wife and three children on a farm
where he grew different crops such as beans, corn, alfalfa, and potatoes for their own
consumption. In the near future, he will start growing avocados as a cash crop. For now, he
considers coffee as his most important crop as it has improved the quality of his life since he was
able to sell coffee as specialty. When I visited him, he was constructing a new kitchen with his
sons. Figure 3 demonstrates a paper attached on the wall that said: “Dreams of the family: that
my children will be[come] professionals, and become more hygienic and clean”. After our lunch,
I interviewed Alejandro and he saw coffee as a way to improve basic conditions:

“As I told you before, whatever we planted, we grew it for consumption. We used our
clothes until they were worn out. We didn't have enough, we only had enough to buy salt
and oil. Things change so we have to raise the coffee more to have money, to sell at a
better price. And with that to sustain our family. Coffee is important to buy appliances,
clothes, and other necessities, but not just for food […] and for example, our little house,
I'm improving it, as you can see” (Informal interview, February 11, 2019)

Figure 3. Dreams of the family.

Samuel, who managed the association, said that improving the material conditions of the
families in the village had a high priority and specialty coffee makes it possible to save some
money: “The houses here are rustic and have difficulties, but we hope that coffee can change this
reality. In this area, there has never been a house with basic amenities. We hope that with coffee,
we can see the economy improve and have basic comforts like a comfortable bedroom and basic
services like a toilet and shower.”
 31

In addition to improving material living conditions, coffee is deeply tied to the desire to
escape a reality perceived as exploitative. Alberto, a farmer from Los Robles, wants to break free
from working “like a slave” for twelve hours a day and instead work a more manageable eight
hours per day. Unfortunately, he has not yet achieved the required cupping score that would bring
in additional income, leaving him dependent on selling his labor before the harvest season. He is
mindful of his spending and intends to invest in improving the quality of his coffee, in hopes of
eventually not having to sell his labor and focusing solely on his family and coffee.
Furthermore, for Edgar, coffee represents a source of hope for sustaining his family. He
aspires to provide a better education for his children in the future, something he never had the
opportunity to experience himself after losing his father at age eight and having to support his
mother.

“We don't want our other children to be exploited in the chakra... no more. “You should
be raising pigs, sheep, taking care of the animals.” That's what my parents used to say. I
have been working in the chakra since I was a child, struggling with the animals. So I just
finished primary school. But for high school, there was no opportunity. Now, finishing
primary school doesn't serve any purpose. Children don't want to be chakreros anymore. I
want them to study. So I support them to study. Finish high school and continue their
education... higher education, of course” (Informal interview, February 14, 2019)

The livelihood conditions of people who are integrated into the market economy are
marked by poverty and the lack of opportunities. Different coping strategies that I described in
the paragraph ‘crises and economic activities’ are more focused on immediate survival rather than
stability or prosperity. However, if coffee was all about becoming rich and making profits, most
farmers in my sample would have decided to participate in the dynamic coca economy. Specialty
coffee is not seen as a way to get rich, but farmers perceive it as an economic plant, a means to
an end, that can provide a stable income, either as a single cash crop or more often as an addition
to other sources of income. Furthermore, these incentives are compelling to farmers who value
the ethics of hard work being rewarded.
In Peru, the specialty market is in its infancy in contrast to other Latin American
countries. Farmers like Álvaro started producing specialty coffee recently when they received
visits from cooperatives, engineers or foreign buyers. Since they started to reap the benefits of
selling their coffee for a higher price, they express their intention to re-invest in their farm to
upgrade the quality and enhance the volume. The next chapter discusses these upgrades in more
detail. In the whole of Junín, inside villages and cooperatives, the minority of people sell their
coffee as specialty with a price more or less twice as high as the stock market’s price. However,
the ball is rolling as more farmers receive support from different initiatives of NGOs,
 32

cooperatives and foreign buyers. The shift towards high-end coffee has resulted in a rise in
production yields with specialty grades and a rise in the number of families growing specialty
coffee. I have seen how the market attracts new families. Farmers see their neighbors or kinships
benefit from the market and begin to see a better future.
The incentives of the market (higher income and stability) enable people to project their
lives into the future. The capacity to aspire is important to endure during times of radical
uncertainty (Jackson 2011). Coffee farmers have constructed their aspirations for a better future
in different ways. Alberto, for instance, hopes to work fewer hours to be able to spend more time
with his children. He also thinks about opening a business in the future.
In the Andean valley, which is remote and lacks good infrastructure, people have been
used to subsistence farming. The recent influx of money made farmers desire to improve their
basic material conditions: housing, healthcare, and hygiene. But more importantly, they directly
linked coffee to the projection of a future in which their children do not have to suffer as they
do. For example, Edgar, who identifies himself as a chakrero, missed out on the opportunity to
escape poverty in the campo, as after primary school he was forced to take care of his mother.
Generally, coffee money is aimed to support children’s education who can “become a
professional”. Like Álvaro explains, being a professional comes with more possibilities. The class
of “professionals” are associated with prosperity while the position of the farmer is associated
with poverty and exploitation.
Thus, what I argue is that while producing specialty coffee benefits capitalist markets in
which high quality and taste and uniqueness are valued, it is also a means for farmers to meet
their own values and aspire for a better future.
 33

Chapter Three: Quality ideas in coffee farming

In the previous chapter I have elaborated on the farmers’ motivations to produce specialty
coffee. People live in conditions of radical uncertainty that may be experienced as permanent by
many. With the promise of creating stability in a volatile market, people see the new market of
specialty coffees as a means to improve their living conditions and to aspire to a better life for
their children. This capacity to aspire to a better life forms an important driver as it gives a sense
of “a way out”. The lucrative specialty coffee markets provide a higher price minimum through
the implementation of quality standards on the farm level and secure coffee-producing families
against the volatile stock market that is inherently an unstable market. Additionally, specialty
coffee plays into the values of farmers: being rewarded for the hard work through which they
undertake and suffer to produce coffee.
The average yield of a farmer is twenty bags (60kgs) per hectare, although it can vary
depending on different factors. Overall, three types of coffee (or markets) can be grown on a
farm. Conventional coffee takes the largest share: between seventy and eight per cent of the total
production. According to different farmers, the costs of producing one kilogram of conventional
coffee vary between five (1,20 euros) and six soles (1,45 euros). This may include the purchase of
land, the planting (after three years it starts fruiting), maintenance, labor and transport costs. The
price for conventional coffee during the periods of my fieldwork counted 5,50 soles per kilo
(1,30 euros) of green coffee. As members of an association or cooperative, farmers had access to
label their coffee with certifications that upgraded the price with an additional 0,15 euros per
label per kilo of green coffee. According to an engineer of a cooperative, “the bonus is
redistributed at the end of the year to farmers and controlled by farmers in a democratic way.”
The market of specialty coffees rewarded coffees with a threshold score of 84 points with 8 soles
(2 euros) per kilo of green coffee and 86 points with 12 soles (3 euros) per kilo of green coffee,
although these prices reached up to 28 soles (6,80 euros) per kilo of green kilo in my sample.
However, the producers with specialty coffees only grew between ten and twenty per cent of the
total production. Most of my informants started producing coffees with specialty grades as a
result of a direct relationship initiated by Sembrando Peru. Other farmers’ coffees were selected
at the Cup of Excellence auctions, where they received attention from (national and
international) buyers and where they recognized their coffees had potential in the specialty
market. Some other farmers have not met the threshold cuppings score that gives them a higher
price yet or have difficulties finding buyers and a supply market for their (potential) specialty
coffees. Thus, given that specialty coffee is the only profitable option of the three categories of
coffee that farmers grow, the importance of reaching a high cupping score with a big volume is
 34

prioritized. This chapter is about the farmers’ notions of quality and how they can potentially add
value to the commodity.
Based on interviews, observations and conversations, I want to present in this chapter a
few arguments about how the implementation of new specialty markets works out in practice.
First, I will explain how quality is defined and measured in producing countries by international
quality conventions. Secondly, I illustrate how farmers focus on the material attributes of quality
to stipulate their dependency on external sources of knowledge. And thirdly, how the new
perceptions of quality sometimes contradict how they view themselves as farmers. Here, they
experience that the new market requires a ‘professional or expert’ view on farming which does
not fit their class identity. In these manners, the image of a gap in knowledge is created between
producers and consumers.

Defining objective quality

As Leroy et al. (2006, 30) acknowledge:
Quality is a trait difficult to define. According to any dictionary, it is an “inherent or
distinguishing characteristic”. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
describes quality as “the ability of a set of inherent characteristics of a product, system or
process to fulfill requirements of customers and other interested parties” (ISO, 2000).
These inherent characteristics can be called “attributes.”

Daviron and Ponte (2005) suggest three attributes through which quality is defined in the
sector of specialty coffee: (1) material attributes of quality, (2) symbolic attributes and (3) in-
person attributes. Material attributes refer to an inherent feature of an object; thus the value
according to material attributes can be determined either by human sense or measurement
devices that create objectivity. The material, intrinsic, and objective attributes are determined by
internal and external factors. Internal factors include the type of varietals and agro-climatic
conditions (soil, altitude, rainfall, etc.) External factors are farm practices, harvesting practices,
post-harvest processing and drying techniques. (Daviron and Ponte 2005, 182). Symbolic
attributes cannot be measured by human senses, technologies or devices, they are based on
reputation and often embedded in trademarks, standards and labels (Daviron and Ponte 2005,
183). In trademarks, a reputation is related to the consumption of a brand. In different labels,
symbolic attributes are created through the consumption of ethics, morality and sustainability
(i.e., fairtrade, organic), or the consumption of a place (geographical indication). Symbolic value
is sometimes created when material attributes of production are translated into symbolic
attributes by using narratives and lexicons of taste and provenance (Fischer 2019). In-person
service attributes of quality refer to the relationship between baristas and the consumer at the
 35

moments of consumption. Farmers have no control over this attribute; hence it will not be
relevant in this chapter.

SCA quality protocols

The Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) and the Specialty Coffee Association of
Europe (SCAE) merged into the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) in 2017. The SCA has
developed lexicon, grading protocols, and best practice tools for measuring the material attributes
of quality in coffee, including evaluating both the physical characteristics (size, defects, color) of
a green bean and the sensorial aspects (aroma, taste) the cup, in order to establish quality
standards for coffee. The SCA protocols are used as the international standard and aim to secure
the integrity of specialty coffee. The notion of quality aims for objectivity and can be measured
‘in the cup’ when the protocols are strictly followed. The physical test identifies the size, color
and number of defects. The sensorial evaluation measures ten attributes of coffee in a sequence
of four steps and is executed by a certified ‘cupper’: fragrance, aroma, flavor, aftertaste, acidity,
body, balance, sweetness, uniformity, and cleanliness are judged with a grade between 6 (-good)
and 9.75 (-outstanding) followed by the more detailed description of each attribute. To describe
the fragrance, aroma and (after)taste, the lexicon of the ‘Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel’ developed
by the World Coffee Research is utilized (Figure 4). The scores are added and comprises the final
cupping score between 80-100 and may be presented in a spider graph31:

• 90-100 - Outstanding - Specialty

• 85-99.99 - Excellent - Specialty
• 80-84.99 - Very Good - Specialty
• < 80.0 - Below Specialty Quality - Not Specialty.

Third Wave specialty coffee is considered to be 85 points and higher which is where the
differentiation in price starts. In Junín, this two-fold evaluation occurs at the ‘cupping labs’ inside
the cooperative’s offices32 executed by the ‘cupper’ with ‘Q-grade’ certification. In theory, the
farmer would receive feedback on the cupping with all the details about their coffee. Ideally, the
farmer understands and applies the information to improve practices and make investments so
he or she receives higher rewards the next year.

31 “Protocols and Best Practices”, SCA, 2023, https://sca.coffee/research/protocols-best-practices

32Not every cooperative or association installed a cupping lab, they were able to outsource the cupping for a small
payment.
 36

Figure 4. SCA Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel

Most farmers in my sample were aware of the SCA certification system described above,
and they understood that they had to accept these standards in order to enhance their incomes:
the higher the objective score, the higher the price. With this in mind, I was interested in how
they relate to quality as a feature of their coffee crops. Using excerpts from conversations with
farmers, I illustrate that, in the narratives where they expressed their perception of quality,
farmers exclusively pay attention to the external material attributes of quality, that is, farm
practices, harvesting, processing, and drying. The coffee variety was the only internal material
quality mentioned by farmers in the Selva Central. Only the farmers from the Andean village
articulated the climate and altitude. Through quotes from different farmers from both the Andes
and Selva Central, I argue that the small-scale farmers relate to quality mostly through farm
practices rather than their own consumption experiences; they lack the cultural capital to define
quality with the Third Wave lexicon used by roasters, baristas and consumers. Thus, quality is
seen as an outcome of what they do on the farm (Daviron and Ponte 2005, 185).
 37

Creating material quality

The most common internal attribute of quality mentioned by farmers was the importance of
varietals. Peru produces almost exclusively Arabica coffee, of which over seventy per cent is of
the Typica variety followed by Caturra (twenty per cent), and others (ten percent)33. Virtually all
farmers produced Caturra and Typica, although the Caturra had to be replaced on most
occasions. A farmer in Santa Ana explained to me that Caturra was the most aromatic of the two.
Most farmers also grew Pache, (red or yellow) Bourbon, Cathuay, or Gesha. These varietals were
seen as ‘specialty’ because they could result in high cupping scores. Gesha was especially valued
for its quality34. With pride in his eyes, one farmer in the jungle said he planted 500 Geshas, and
that he was looking to expand this variety. Most often farmers mix different varieties. For
example, Álvaro used a mixture of Pache, Caturra and Typica, because according to him, it was
better than a single varietal, “they all have a good quality”. He also produced Catimor, not for the
specialty clients, but mostly for the market of conventional coffee. Catimor, Gran Colombia and
Costa Rica 96 were newer hybrid breeds developed to be more resistant to plant diseases, and at
least one of them was planted after the leaf rust. The possibility of having more resistant
varietals besides the ‘quality’ varietals on the farm could be explained as a means to reduce risk,
as farmers deal with multiple plant diseases simultaneously. Samuel, a farmer educated as an
agronomist, said that Catimor was not suitable for niche markets, but: “Gran Colombia gives us
more opportunity because it has a little more flavor in the cup than the Catimor, so we can still
manipulate this variety in the honey or maybe natural [processing method] coffees.” However,
this ‘manipulation’ raises production costs in the investment of labor and alternative drying
capacities. What is at stake here is that while varietals that are considered to be ‘better’ by the
specialty market are preferred by farmers, the varietals of lower quality might be more beneficial
if farmers aim to protect their plants against fungal diseases. Additionally, if farmers continue to
orient themselves to the specialty niches, the government-funded Catimors will increasingly be
replaced by new varietals, despite the young age of these Catimors. It will take another three
years before the new plants start to produce.
Another internal attribute that Samuel mentioned was the relevance of altitude. His farm,
located between 2200 and 2400 masl, is higher than all coffee farms in the Selva of Junín:
“Around 2014, we did not have a quality criteria back then. According to us, our coffee was good,
it was decent. Simply because the altitude is good [high]. But that alone would not get us a good
price.” Edgar, a farmer from the same village, said the village grows good coffee due to the

33 Gaspar Nolte, Peru Coffee Annual, 2019.

34Gesha variety holds the record for best-sold coffee on an auction in 2014. It was produced on the farm La
Esmeralda in Panama and became very popular afterwards.
 38

climate. He related this judgment to the cup: “It has a good aroma, it has a good taste! Do you
know why? Because it's the climate here.” Edgar explained to me that the climate in Sierra is
drier, which makes the coffee harder and firmer when harvested, but also maintains its quality
better. In contrast, in the Selva Central the coffee is softer and will fall from the branch when it is
ripe, due to the higher humidity in the soil. Therefore, he mentions that coffee in Sierra is of
better quality than in the Selva Central. Both Samuel and Edgar are able to differentiate the
material attributes of quality compared to coffee in the Selva. The question is to what extent
these differentiations in material attributes made by farmers are able to be translated into
symbolic value at other nodes of the value chain, so capital is accumulated and redistributed.
The external material attributes of quality refer to what coffee farmers do (labor) and
invest (resources, materials) in order to meet the quality conventions promoted by the SCA. Their
practices are preceded by an idea of what is good. Motivated to enhance quality, these ideas of
‘good’ (c.q. valued) originate from a system that evaluates objective material quality. In other
words, “participation [in the market] involves acceptance of terms defined by key agents
[specialty buyers, roasters] or institutions [SCA], if one aims for progress in higher positions in
the chain […] upgrading is seen through the scope of how knowledge and informant flow from
‘lead firms’ to [farmers], whether upgrading appears to be on level of functionality (learning new
practices, abandoning old ones), production (increasing value of a product) or process
(efficiency)” (Humphrey 2002, as cited in Daviron and Ponte 2005, 105).
In the following section, I will present the material that resulted from conversations I had
with coffee farmers who made efforts to ‘upgrade’ their coffee production on the level of
‘functionality’, ‘production’ (an increase of quality) and ‘process’ (efficiency) by following the
narratives about how they produce ‘specialty’ coffee. As we follow a few aspects of the
cultivation process, it becomes evident that their ideas of quality originate from engineers,
technicians and buyers. In the flow of knowledge from center to periphery, I argue that access to
knowledge is key yet arbitrary. Most farmers I interviewed were ‘lucky’ to receive visits from ‘key
agents’ such as buyers, technicians and engineers who teach and upgrade them to improve the
material quality that is rewarded. Simultaneously, farmers complain about what they lack: proper
knowledge and connection with experts.

Production and process

Before the coffee is harvested, quality is generally understood by farmers as a healthy coffee plant
that has bright green leaves and will end up full of cherries. A healthy plant is a result of care and
 39

attention during the period between November and March (outside the harvest season)35.
Practices of ‘care’ include weeding and pruning with (machinery) machetes three to four times
per year which they define as limpiar36. However, limpiar is labor-intensive and often workers are
hired. The labor and costs invested in weeding can be reduced when one has shade trees around
the coffee plants, which slows down the spread of weeds. Furthermore, shade trees maintain the
humidity of the ambience, and are favored when there is a shortage of rain or water supply. The
ideal ratio of sunlight/shade is argued to be 60/40. “The leaves will be greener and more
vigorous”37. The humid conditions that are perceived as quality enhancing are also ideal growing
conditions for fungal diseases, such as the leaf rust, pie negro38 and ojo de pollo39. Since most
farmers grow organically—irrespective of whether they truly value growing and consuming
organic food in the countryside, or whether the certification scheme mandates them to—they
cannot use pesticides to control diseases. Both the farmers and technicians of cooperatives
admitted that plant diseases are hard to control in an organic way (see footnotes 40 and 41). Yet,
plant diseases affect the volume and the quality. Diseases threaten the cupping score because it
may lead to a higher amount of defects that are counted during the physical evaluation of the
SCA quality control. The higher the defects, the lower the material quality, the lower the price.
Organically grown coffee was not measured by the SCA standards, however, the majority of
farmers perceived organically grown coffee as a marker of quality. Given the preferences to use
organic as opposed to chemical compost material and the consumption of originally grown food
and raised cattle in the countryside that is often valued when farmers compared their
consumption habits to the ones of urban people. Alberto, a farmer in Los Robles, argued that he
avoids contaminating the soil, it lowers the shelf life of the plants: “Not contaminating the soil is
also part of my future. I teach my children not to throw away plastic bottles, chewing gum.
Maybe, they or my grandchildren are going to work here”. Furthermore, when he showed me
around his farm, he pointed out that the plants around his house looked better because that's

35 “A healthy plant looks beautiful with its bright green leaves, you can see it is treated well. When you do not pay
attention to the plant, the leaves will slowly die” (Interview, Santiago, February 09, 2019).
36 A farmer’s term for weeding and pruning.

37The shade tree information comes from personal communication with Samuel (manager and agronomist) and
Edgar, coffee farmer in the Sierra.
38 Pie Negro is a disease caused by the fungus Rosellinia Bunodes. The symptoms are a loss of roots that are turning
black. When the leaves of the trees lose their color could be a sign that the tree is infected and in the process of
dying. The treatment includes sunlight, airflow and the removal of old shade trees (Lizarraga Valencia 2012, 16-18).
39 The leaf rooster disease, caused by the fungus Mycena Citricolor. The name refers to small grey circles that look like
the eye of roosters. The treatment entails cutting the branches up to 50cm from the soil to create ventilation
(Lizarraga Valencia 2012, 18-22).
 40

where they trash their organic waste. In the quote of Alberto, he stresses the importance of
certain aspects of organic farming with a perception of sustainability in his mind.
On high-altitude farms, the harvest takes place between April and October. All farmers
stressed the importance of picking only the ripe beans (“los maduritos”) and it often appeared to
be the first thing they mentioned when I asked what specialty coffee enticed. Quality was
associated with the ability to select the right color red: “Madurito is the right moment, not
overripe, neither the half-ripes nor the green ones.”

Figure 5. Stages of ripeness coffee cherry.

Figure 6. Planta beneficio (washing tank).

 41

In Figure 5, it is shown the different colors of the fruit, the second one from the left is
what farmers identify as madurito. On a harvest day, the role of the male farmers is to oversee the
harvest and the processing. The female farmers also oversee, but in most cases, her primary
responsibility is to cook for the workers. Workers often stay between two and four weeks on each
farm before they continue to the next one. According to Álvaro they often return: “I think
because we treat them well”. So, during the harvest, workers pick the ripe cherries and collect
them at the washing tank (planta beneficio, see Figure 6), where the cherries are pulped, fermented
(until the next day), washed and dried. Most farmers have their own tanks and sun-drying beds
next to their homes. Some cooperatives consider installing larger tanks that can be placed in a
central location between farms. The goal is to homogenize the quality differences between farms
to achieve a more consistent outcome, which is preferred by some buyers and market segments.
During the processing of coffee, handling, timing and hygiene appeared to be important
aspects emphasized by different farmers. The processing phase takes place at the end of the day
when all cherries are picked, according to Alejandro: “When you harvest and collect, you can’t
wait three days. Instead, on the same afternoon you pulp with a machine, subsequently, you wash,
ferment, and then bring it to the drying beds where it reaches 12% of humidity. That coffee in
this way is tasty, pleasant. But also if you handle it poorly, the coffee doesn't have the same
aroma.” Another farmer, Álvaro, from Los Robles, emphasized doing everything according to the
right timing:

“the coffee cannot pass fermentation, exact timing [15-24 hours]. The drying also has its
timing [4 days]” and works hygienically during the processing: “Specialty coffee cannot
dry that on the ground. Because coffee absorbs and when it dries it absorbs it will not
have a cup with good quality. We have specialty coffee because we wash it well, we select
the bean until it has the ultimate dryness. We give it a good treatment, more hygienic. We
don’t contaminate it, we avoid that” (Interview, January 18, 2019)

In addition to the processing, a cement tank was often perceived as a huge improvement
compared to wooden tanks by farmers. Another investment that was seen as an improvement
was a secadora solar, lifted drying beds with transparent tarps to diffuse direct sunlight and
diminish the drying process by the length of four days. Secadora solares are costly to construct and
an obstacle to drying a large volume at once.
In theory, during the processing, a coffee farmer has control to ‘manipulate’ the quality
of the coffee and create something that tastes differently. The general rule is to use the ‘washed
method’ described above: pulping, fermenting, washing and drying. The exception is pulping the
cherry from the bean after drying (natural method), so the beans absorb the sugars that are in the
cherry. The honey method refers to coffee that is pulped and fermented but dried without being
 42

washed. Both methods allow the coffee to absorb more sugar and these methods result in a
sweeter taste, with more accentuated flavors. As mentioned by Samuel on page 32, it is possible
to manipulate the quality of a bean in the processing phase and create differences:

“When comparing Catimor [of the Sierra] with Catimor of the jungle, it develops a little
more [flavor] in the cup. It is a bit more pleasant. We hope with the honey [process], we
will have better coffee, a better product. But we are still inexperienced, we are
experimenting, on that learning path, we have not yet developed a definitive knowledge
of what we have to do with each coffee. Last year we did some honey coffee experiments
and it was more or less good” (Informal interview, February 10, 2019).

The harvest and processing techniques are the practices that correlate the most directly with the
taste. While the washed method is considered to be standard, the alternative methods I have
described here, can lead to significant improvements in the cup.

Functionality
Participation in the specialty market involves the acceptance of the SCA standards if one aims to
progress to higher positions in the chain. In the next excerpts of conversations, farmers explain
how they understand the ‘functionalities’ of the new market. They aim for a ‘better position in
the chain’, by abandoning their old practices, and replacing them with the new practices that are
required by the quality standards of the SCA. In practice, farmers usually receive visits from
buyers and engineers, whom they see as ‘experts’ to educate them to improve the quality.
According to Samuel, they as farmers started to understand how to produce better coffee when
they entered the specialty markets: “We did not take coffee seriously and did not know about the
practices needed to grow it, but now we are paying attention to things like installing shade,
cleaning and fertilizing the plants. We are also now more aware of the need to pick only ripe
coffee cherries, to use proper methods for pulping, drying and storing the beans to maintain the
quality.”
Santiago, a 49-year-old farmer, explained to me that they planted the seed directly into the
soil, but that was not good. Now they are using plastic bags to let the seed sprout and let it grow
until it is a cutting, then they dig a hole, plant the cutting into the soil and add a lot of fertilizer to
ensure a steady development that eventually starts producing good-sized beans. In regard to
pulping and drying, they are improving compared to the past. As Santiago tells me:

In the past, there was no pulping machine. We peeled it by hand little by little [he rubs his
two hands], but it was not really pulped. It is like starting off, right? Quite bad, but we are
starting to improve now. [...] In the drying process, the shells should not burst. It should
dry as it is without bursting its shells. That is what the engineer says is the way to dry.
 43

Before it was not like this in the past. I used to dry my coffee on a board, on a slope.
Now the association dries my coffee in the sun. But they say that is not good. It should
be with those transparent tarps with less heat and normal dryness. There, the shells do
not burst. They are not explaining it well to me. That is a talk we have to listen to. Haha.
That's right, Mario. (Interview, February 9, 2019)

Although Santiago notes that entering the specialty coffee market through the association
helps him to upgrade his coffee production in terms of functionality, there still seems to be some
confusion on certain techniques in the production process. He, like Samuel, takes the expertise of
buyers and engineers seriously and wants to implement their advice to improve his production.
But with regard to trying, things are not all that clear to him. This is a theme I encountered in
many other parts of the production process while talking with farmers. They want to ‘learn’ from
experts and put their knowledge into practice, but often find themselves left with gaps in the
knowledge transmitted to them or little cooperation from the side of engineers and buyers. This
can bring insecurity and confusion but sometimes also frustration, as this quote shows: “No
engineers come here. No one comes to talk to us, nothing. We have to do everything ourselves.
No one explains anything to us. We don't know anything. As farmers, we just plant enough for
our own consumption, not for selling”, according to Edgar from Valle Grande.
In addition to the fact that farmers lack the access to the knowledge about specialty coffee,
they seem to associate the knowledge with someone who is an ‘expert’ or ‘professional’. Jaime, a
farmer from Los Robles, who maintains a direct relationship with Sembrando Peru, asked me for
advice on how to improve the quality of his coffee when I introduced myself to him as an
anthropologist. The fact that ‘expert’ knowledge comes from outside, that is transmitted by
people with different background in class, education or race, makes it difficult for farmers to
merge their identities with the new knowledge, as this quote from Álvaro shows:

“I would like to have my children continue working with coffee, but not like me. Maybe if
my children want to continue producing specialty coffee, I would like them to do that
with a professional vision. Not with a vision like me, not like an agricultor. But with the
capacities and with a mentality they can be professionals, a lot of professionals produce
coffee in good circumstances, not like an agricultor who has little knowledge, although we
[or agricultores in general] elaborate on our coffee with the capacities we have. But a
professional will do better, right?” (Informal interview, January 18, 2019)

Thus, on the one hand, farmers are often left with gaps in the knowledge transmitted to
them. On the other hand, this ‘expert’ knowledge about specialty coffee does not fit with how
they think of themselves. This idea of ‘expert knowledge’ comes from outside, and sort of
ignores their own long-standing knowledge. New forms of cultivation require different kinds of
knowledge that have to fit within the elite, western-driven consumption markets.
 44

In this chapter I have described how specialty coffee farmers focus their attention in the
production process mostly on factors that improve the intrinsic quality of their coffee. They take
the knowledge of ‘experts’ seriously and try to implement their advice and suggestions to
improve their practices on the levels of ‘functionality’, ‘production’ and ‘process’.

However, they stumble upon various problems when trying to do so. First of all, they
seem to lack access to certain forms of knowledge that engineers and buyers possess. The lack of
transparency and unequal access to knowledge creates inequalities within the value chain of
specialty coffee, but more importantly for the farmers, can hamper their access to the specialty
coffee market. Since their coffee has to meet certain ‘objective’ standards in order to qualify as
specialty coffee, they need to know which techniques and practices can help them produce coffee
that meets these criteria. The promise of stability that specialty coffee holds is in this way not
always fulfilled, as many farmers are left struggling to access the required knowledge and
struggling to uphold the standards for specialty coffee. As some of the previous quotes show,
farmers often still do not see a stable future in specialty coffee farming for their children and
advise them instead to find other means of sustaining themselves.

Furthermore, a lot of the knowledge needed to produce specialty coffee does not reflect
the way these farmers see themselves. Certain forms of knowledge on coffee production that
circulated among farmers for many generations becomes useless in the face of the expertise of
engineers and buyers. Moreover, farmers often juxtapose the idea of ‘professional’ or ‘expert’ to
the notion of ‘farmer’, indicating that they understand the expertise that comes with specialty
farming as contradicting what it means to be a farmer. Values of ‘hard work’ and honesty that
usually give a sense of pride and dignity to their identity as a farmer are not valued in this new
context of specialty coffee where ‘expertise’ and ‘professionalism’ are valued instead.

While in this chapter I have focused on the intrinsic material qualities of specialty coffee
and specialty coffee production, in the next chapter I will examine how certain symbolic values
attributed to specialty coffee play a role in providing farmers with stability (or instability). I will
delve deeper into the question of access to knowledge and argue that this lack of access hampers
farmers from accessing the specialty coffee market in different ways, specifically when it comes to
adding symbolic value to their coffee. Here I will also nuance the importance of ‘objective’
qualities in specialty coffee by examining the specialty coffee market through a ‘material culture
approach’ (Appadurai 1986). Following, I will discuss in what ways the specialty coffee value
chain can be restructured to provide farmers with a more stable position from which they can
attain their aspiration for a better life.
 45

Chapter Four: Mythologies of transparency

As a coffee snob, I purchase my coffee at different specialty shops and cafés in Amsterdam,
always going for something different. In the town where I currently live there is no specialty
coffee to be found and I decided to go for a subscription that delivers coffee to my mailbox. So, I
have been receiving a 225g bag of ‘single origin’ coffee twice a week in my mailbox. Every month
they change the origin, so it happened that in December 2022 they sent me coffee from Junín;
coffee that they probably bought from Sembrando Perú. I opened the cardboard, and the bag
came with a leaflet with the header: “Wake up knowing where your coffee is from.” At the front
side was a portrait of the coffee-producing family with their names. I turned the leaflet and read
the following information:

High in the Selva Central (the central jungle) on a foothill of the Andes lays the oldest
coffee region in Peru. In this region, near the town of Villa Rica, small-scale coffee
farmers […] produce high-quality coffee with a distinctly fruity, balanced flavour.

Because you first have to cross the peaks of the Andes from the capital, Lima, on difficult
roads to reach the area, the farmers live fairly cut off from the outside world. This was
much worse during Covid which virtually shut down life in the region. This year,
fortunately, everything is picking up a bit and the area is opening up to the outside world
again. As a result, the nine families who grow this 'Alto Pajonal' coffee together have
been able to export their coffee again.

The selva -as the name suggests- is a forested area. That is why we work with our partners
there according to the principles of “Agro Forestry”: growing different species of trees
and plants -including coffee- mixed to encourage the preservation of biodiversity. The
result is a creamy coffee with flavour notes of dark chocolate, cherries and caramel.

At the bottom of the page, there were more details about the coffee and the provenance:

Region: Alto Pajonal, Peru

Method: Washed
Altitude: 1250-1550 masl
Taste: Dark chocolate, cherry and caramel
Body: Medium
Varietals: Caturra, Bourbon, Pache, Catuai, Catimor

I brewed a few V60 filter coffee using these beans and was impressed with the clean taste
and full body of the cup. The flavor notes of dark chocolate were prominent, but I could also
detect hints of sweetness and acidity. However, the flavors were not as complex and pronounced
as in more expensive coffees.
 46

This bag of coffee is representative of what one might expect when purchasing Third
Wave coffee. However, at a price of 7 euros per 225 grams, it is unlikely to be considered a Third
Wave coffee as most of these coffees typically sell for 12 euros per 250 grams. The lack of a
complex flavor profile and cupping score, which is not mentioned, likely indicates a score below
85 points. Additionally, the marketing of Third Wave coffee usually focuses more on the unique
characteristics of the cup (aroma, fragrance, taste, acidity) and processing techniques, rather than
on the background of the farmers and origin. Despite these differences, I will examine this
example to analyze the information conveyed to specialty coffee consumers and highlight the
imbalance in knowledge between producers and consumers.
The coffee brand's slogan, "Wake up knowing where your coffee is from," implies an
educational component, emphasizing the importance of knowing the origin of one's coffee, as
noted by Fischer (2019, 12). "Education is not only focused on broad cup profiles, but also on a
romanticized provenance, including farmers' names and details about their lives," according to
Fischer (2019, 12). This coffee includes the names and faces of two of the nine farmers who
produced it, as well as information about the region, providing a personal connection with the
producers rather than a mythical image commonly associated with fair trade coffee. As Fischer
(2019, 13) highlights, “backstories and connections with the producer are key elements of de-
commodified value.”
The region “Alto Pajonal” is unfamiliar to me. Upon research, I discovered that it is a
Spanish term used in Latin America to refer to high-altitude grasslands or meadows, often in the
context of agriculture. As a consumer of specialty coffee, I have learned that the more specific
the geographical location, the more special and valuable the coffee is (i.e. specific village, farm, or
lot). However, obscuring the name of the region could indicate that the coffee is from a variety
of different areas, reducing its uniqueness. On the other hand, the roaster may assume that their
consumers do not have knowledge about the specific location of the coffee's origin or may not
be interested in it. The region is stated to be “near the town of Villa Rica.” Villa Rica, known for
its colonial history and tradition of coffee production in the Selva Central, is a successful center
of coffee commercialization. The town, founded in 1635 by Franciscan monks and still to some
extent inhabited by colonial descendants, is famous for its geographical indication (GI) label and
unique, fruity coffee flavors. The proximity of Alto Pajonal to Villa Rica is unknown, but it
capitalizes on Villa Rica's reputation, GI label, and terroir (the taste of a place). The leaflet also
mentions that the farmers live somewhat isolated from the outside world, emphasizing their
remoteness, and states that the coffee is produced while preserving the rainforest through
principles of diversity.
This example highlights the trend in specialty coffee niches as part of a larger movement
towards de-commodified food products that emphasize connectivity and ethical and moral
 47

provenance. As consumers, we receive a wealth of information when purchasing coffee due to

increased transparency, with the goal of benefiting the producers' position in the supply chain
and overcoming the alienation between consumers and producers (Meneley 2018, 121). The well-
intentioned goal is to benefit producers’ position in the chain and to overcome the alienation
among consumers in the process of commodification. However, I argue that producers’
knowledge about the details of consumers, consumer behavior and preferences, stands in
contrast with the knowledge that roasters and consumers have about the production and origin
of coffee.

The Material Culture of Specialty Coffee

To understand this gap between producers and consumers, and this one-directional form of
transparency in the value chain of coffee, Daviron and Ponte (2005, 296) draw on Appadurai’s
material culture approach. Appadurai (1986) understands commodities as objects of economic
value and notes that this economic value does not come from the intrinsic properties of the
product. Instead, he argues that this value should be understood as a ‘judgment made by subjects
on objects’ (as cited in Daviron and Ponte 2005, 297) along moral, symbolic and categorical
standards and criteria that emerge in certain social contexts, specifically in situations of exchange.
In the case of specialty coffee, we can use this approach to understand the lexicon and narrative
of quality, provenance and identity by which specialty coffee is sold and marketed to me as a
consumer of ‘specialty coffee’. In fact, it is by these attributions of symbolic value during the
situation of exchange (me buying and receiving the coffee) that the object of coffee turns into
the commodity ‘specialty coffee’. Furthermore, Appadurai argues that, since such situations of
exchange are always embedded in unequal and hierarchical social relationships, the value of a
commodity ‘reflects one or more situationally and historically dominant classificatory regimes’ (as
cited in Daviron and Ponte 2005, 297). In the Third Wave, the lexicons of taste and provenance
reflect these dominant regimes. As such, the way in which the object (coffee produced by the
farmers) moves in and out of ‘commodity status’ (becoming specialty coffee), and what value is
attributed to it, is often shaped by the social relations within the value chain and is highly
symbolic in nature.

Knowledge and Transparency

In the Third Wave, consumers receive all kinds of information about the provenance and the
taste of coffee (see the examples in the vignette). As noted before, access to this kind of
information is possible through ‘transparency’ that is accomplished by buyers and roasters who
function as cultural intermediaries between producers and consumers. Here, the role of
 48

knowledge, specifically of ‘markets, consumers and destinations of things’ (Daviron and Ponte
2005, 297), becomes important. Firstly, Appadurai notes how an unequal distribution of such
knowledge along the value chain shapes the way symbolic value is attributed to commodities. He
argues that ‘when the spatial, cognitive and institutional distances between production,
distribution and consumption are great’ (Appadurai 1986, 48) we can see mythologies about
commodities and commodity flows emerge (Daviron and Ponte 2005, 298). Such mythologies or
fetishization can be the disappearance of social relationships of production at the end of the
value chain, the presentation of ‘harmonious relationships between nature, place and community’
or the idea of consumers supporting producers through fair trade consumption (Daviron and
Ponte 2005, 301).
These mythologies challenge the idea of transparency that is often promoted by specialty
coffee brands. The narratives of production, taste, quality and provenance on specialty coffee
packages often obscure the fact that access to knowledge and markets within the value chain is
unequally distributed, and that transparency only happens in one direction. In contrast to the
details consumers receive about coffee, farmers generally receive very little knowledge about
other parts of the value chain. As I have shown in chapter three, farmers’ knowledge about
specialty coffee is limited to the quality standards they have to meet, as they relate to quality in
terms of material attributes.
I argue that by tracing these types of mythologies throughout the value chain and
juxtaposing them with the lived experience of specialty coffee producers, it becomes possible to
unveil and evaluate the gaps and bridges between worlds of both ends of the specialty coffee
chain, and how this affects and limits the possibilities of coffee producers in Peru to attribute
value to their coffee and access markets. In the following section, I will first outline some of the
specialty coffee mythologies at the end of the chain. Then I will show how producers are often
little aware of what happens on the other side of the value chain – that is, the information about
consumer behavior and preferences. I will argue that while the Third Wave coffee aims to close
the gap between consumers and producers through an increased connectivity and ‘direct-trade’, it
is the “one-way gaze that provides consumers with more information about producers, but does
not tell producers who the consumers are, or what they want” that leads to fragmented
knowledge (Daviron and Ponte 2005, 296). Strategies to increase connectivity between consumers
and producers require serious efforts to overcome this fragmented knowledge (Derks et al. 2020,
22).

Specialty coffee mythologies

Special refers to something that is valued or hard to obtain. Partially, the value of specialty coffee
is based on its status of scarcity and rarity. Nano or micro-lots are often the most expensive
 49

coffees because their availability is limited. In essence, buyers, roasters, baristas, and consumers
pursue something that is unique. In Chapter Three, I have described how ‘objectivity’ is sought in
the notion of quality through the use of tasting certifications, blind cupping, and other metrics in
producer countries. In the opening vignette of this chapter, the roaster has created narratives and
lexicons of provenance (single-origin, altitude, varietals, personal backstory), taste ("distinctly
fruity, balanced flavor"), along with the purchase of raw coffee. On the consumer side of the
chain, value creation is based on a system of differences within a competitive and changing
market. Buyers, roasters, and marketers infuse coffee with symbolic attributes such as images,
narratives, quality, and fairness to increase its value. These mythologies or symbolic values, which
cannot be measured by the human senses, are the attributes that make coffee profitable in
addition to its intrinsic material quality. Third Wave coffee consumers value taste, excellence,
authenticity, uniqueness, and a personal connection with provenance. A consumer would
consider a coffee to be "special" based on their sensory experience. Additionally, the Third Wave
market is fickle by nature; coffee experts constantly seek novelty through innovations in farming,
roasting, brewing, and consumer preferences and values are constantly changing

Gaps in the chain

In Peru, specialty coffee is introduced as a tool for development, producing a commodity that
meets consumer demands in international markets. The aim of rewarding quality upgrades is to
protect farmers from volatile market prices, which are related to fluctuations in global supply and
demand (Derks, 2020). In Chapter Three, it was demonstrated that farmers often understand
quality in terms of material objective attributes, and that rewards are based on what they do on
their farms. Additionally, they understand specialty coffee production as a better way to interact
with their plants, with more attention and in a natural manner consistent with their rural
consumption patterns. They also see it as a way to become more resilient against plant diseases.
While most farmers in the sample have benefited from the higher price of specialty coffee, they
face challenges regarding access to proper knowledge and guidance in the cultivation process.
Coffee-producing families have an idea about the quality and value of coffee that does not
necessarily match the idea driven by roasters, baristas, and consumers. The discrepancy in value
worlds between both ends of the chain seems to be caused by a lack of knowledge about
consumer preferences and market developments on the producer side. For example, although
most specialty producers do consume their own coffee, they do so in very different ways
compared to Third Wave consumers. Their coffee is roasted by the cooperative or by themselves
on a stove, and they prepare it in their own ways. Coffee drinking is not part of their daily rituals,
and they do not describe the taste of coffee with the same lexicon used by roasters, baristas, and
consumers. On the other side of the chain, there may be a lack of transparency about the values
 50

of farmers. For instance, sustainable and organic farm practices are more important to them than
advanced processing techniques that correlate with taste and cupping scores. In fact, a lack of
transparency on both sides of the chain only disadvantages farmers in a market where the
domain of symbolic value is not controlled by them.

Turning myths into profits

Appadurai argues that the distribution of this knowledge along the value chain affects the way in
which profits are distributed. A lack of knowledge on the side of producers about the market can
result in high profits for traders and distributors “to the relative deprivation of the producing
country or class” (Appadurai 1986, 43). When it comes to specialty coffee, it is often argued that
producers run this risk of missing out on profits as most of the symbolic value of specialty
coffee is added in parts of the value chain where producers are absent, namely the moment when
their products are turned into a commodity (specialty coffee). As Daviron and Ponte (2005, 186)
note: “in producing countries, coffee is traded and priced mainly in relation to its material quality
attributes [size of beans, defects etc.],” while the added symbolic value, on the other hand, “is
usually evaluated only at the export point” or at the point where the producer organization and
the buyer meet to define the sensorial properties of the cup (i.e., taste attributes of a roasted
coffee).
The value added through cupping, roasting, brewing techniques, and symbolic attributes
described in the opening vignette become obfuscated when there is a lack of transparency. At the
end of the chain, people value coffee differently as a result and their preferences are often not
looped back to producers. In fact, producers do not consume the same coffee as Third Wave
consumers. Producers cultivate green coffee. Consumers purchase roasted or brewed coffee.
Even more, not all farmers receive the details of the cupping results from their cooperative. The
lack of access to the taste preferences of consumers deprives farmers of matching their coffees
to the right markets. Furthermore, sustainable practices are not measured in the SCA standards.
Then, efforts to farm sustainable or organic crops are not necessarily translated into profit by a
system that measures objective quality and sensorial cup properties. In case farmers are also
excluded from the parts of the chain where the most symbolic value is added, their mythologies
about organic or sustainable farming cannot be translated into economic gain.
Sembrando Peru who collaborates with producers helps in organizing production to
better meet the needs of roasters by either planting and cultivating micro-lots on the farm or
guiding farmers in the processing phase. Such partnerships can be effective in reducing the
mismatch in knowledge between different parts of the chain. However, producer organizations
tend to struggle more in connecting with the market to gather information on trends and to
leverage their social capital to access the symbolic domain where quality is created. For example, I
 51

visited a cooperative in Pichanaki that had invested in the material means required by the
specialty market, including an office, cupping lab, drying machines, and large drying beds.
However, they did not have a specialty buyer to translate these investments into profit.
At the end of the chain, I spoke with a roaster in Amsterdam who sourced coffee from
Sembrando Peru. In his coffee bar, he had a list of exclusive coffees from different countries. I
asked him what made them so exclusive and whether they had high cupping scores. He replied
that he didn't even know. Some of the coffees might not even be classified as Third Wave
specialty. The cupping score, which is widely used to evaluate coffee, was not a priority for him.
Instead, he placed more importance on his personal preferences and the social relationships he
had built with buyers. He had purchased the coffee from Peru without cupping it because he
trusted the importer's competence and knowledge of quality. This highlights that the coffees that
are most cherished by the roaster are considered specialty because of their rarity, price, and
distinctiveness, even if they don't meet the SCA standards. In these situations, quality becomes
almost entirely symbolic. Nothing in the SCA scheme guarantees that higher objective quality is
awarded with higher prices at the producer level (Daviron and Ponte 2005, 222). The demand for
rarity that seeks outliers, combined with the fickle nature of the specialty market, will change
ideas about what is specialty in the value chain. Farmers who are heavily invested in production
may need five years of planning to adjust to new market demands, and if they don't adjust in
time, oversupply and declining prices can result in losses.
The question remains: how can the specialty coffee value chain be restructured to
distribute profits more equally and empower producers? Can shorter value chains better integrate
the intimate knowledge of producers, and would direct relations between farmers and buyers
allow farmers to add symbolic value to their products, rather than relying on buyers and roasters?
In the concluding chapter of this thesis, I will address these questions and provide suggestions
for restructuring the value chain to give farmers a more powerful position in the chain and help
them achieve their aspirations for a better life.
 52

Conclusion

In the previous chapters, I have reached the following conclusions. Firstly, the instability of the
coffee market has historical roots, and the move towards specialty coffee was seen as a way to
provide farmers with greater stability, as it is a less volatile market where quality generally
commands a good price. Secondly, the transition to specialty coffee shapes the aspirations and
hopes of farmers, not just for financial gain, but also for ethical considerations such as family,
stability, and work values. Thirdly, despite these expectations, specialty coffee in practice is not as
stable as it may appear. Confusion about how to produce specialty coffee, as well as a lack of
knowledge among farmers about specialty coffee practices, presents barriers to farmers’ access to
the specialty coffee market. Moreover, the prevalent notions of "expertise" and "professionalism"
within the specialty coffee value chain often conflict with farmers' self-image as farmers. Fourth,
using a material culture approach, I emphasized the gap between farmers and consumers/buyers
in the value chain and noted that the production of symbolic added value, which commodifies
coffee into “specialty coffee,” takes place exclusively at the end of the value chain and is beyond
the reach of farmers. Transparency in the value chain operates only in one direction, and farmers
have limited influence over the creation of symbolic value, leading to a situation where the profits
from this symbolic added value do not reach the farmers. Although coffee farmers can benefit
from the specialty coffee market's rewards for material quality, I argue that the promise of
security for coffee-producing families from a volatile market is not easily fulfilled. The lack of
cultural capital and knowledge gaps prevent farmers from tapping into the production of
symbolic value at the consumer end of this coffee chain.
Although farmers see specialty coffee as a means to improve their situation, the way the
specialty coffee value chain is currently structured does not benefit farmers optimally. This has
for a large part to do with the distribution of knowledge and the different and competing ways in
which specialty coffee is valued along the value chain. Derks et al. have similarly noted that in
cases where producers of specialty products value the product differently than consumers, or
when there is confusion along the chain about how to value the specialty product, profits for
producers can be insecure (Derks et al. 2020, 21). One way to overcome this problem might be to
highlight the geographical indication of the product more at the end of the chain (Derks et al.
2020). The promise is it will bridge the gap between the valuation of the product between
consumer and producer, since geographical indication as a value signifier is not very sensitive to
the volatility of different valuation regimes. However, empirical data suggests this does not work
since much depends on how organized producers are and how much knowledge they have about
the way one can brand a specialty product through geographical indication, which is the problem
we started with from the beginning (Derks et al. 2020, 21). They argue it is instead more
 53

rewarding for producers to put the cultivator more centrally in the value chain and aim to bridge
the gap of knowledge between the two ends of the chain (Derks et al. 2020, 21-22).
One way to bridge the gap between producers and buyers is to shorten the distance
between them. This is often achieved through the use of cooperatives, which serve as
intermediaries between the two parties. On the one hand, this can be beneficial for farmers as it
provides them with access to practical knowledge from buyers and engineers that might
otherwise be difficult to obtain. However, it also increases the distance between producers and
buyers and results in less intimate interactions. It is these intimate interactions that allow farmers
to see how symbolic value is added to their coffee, how it becomes special during exchange, and
how consumers value and consume it.
In my sample, two farmers, Rosita from Santa Ana and Jorge from Huánuco Pampa,
received technical assistance from Sembrando Peru during the harvest season a year prior to my
fieldwork. They experimented with “anaerobic fermentation” and “natural process” techniques,
which are commonly known to Third Wave consumers, under the guidance of the company.
These processing techniques increase the rarity of the coffee due to the unique flavors they
produce in the cup, which in turn can raise the price of specialty coffee and provide rewards to
the farmers. In a direct relationship based on trust and two-way transparency, these rewards can
be redistributed to the farmers. I had the opportunity to try some of Mauro's naturally processed
coffee, and I must say it was very comparable to the filter coffee served at specialty coffee bars I
frequently visit.
This example highlights the importance of direct contact between buyers and producers
in understanding how consumers value specialty coffee and how symbolic value can be added to
it. This, in turn, leads to better transparency and empowers the producer. While cooperatives play
an important role in taking on tasks that farmers cannot perform, they can also hinder
communication between farmers and buyers. Direct contact helps farmers to see coffee as a final
product and to understand its taste and uniqueness, and it also makes the farmer more aware of
fluctuations in the specialty coffee market, enabling them to respond better.
Direct relationships based on trust and intimacy provide a means of reducing knowledge
gaps between producers and consumers. By having more direct contact with consumers,
producers can better understand the symbolic value that is added to their coffee, which in turn
can help them adapt their production to consumer demands. Alternatively, producers can
influence the symbolic value of their coffee by sharing their own ideas about specialty coffee
with roasters, barista’s and consumers. One avenue for this is to increase domestic consumption
of specialty coffee. As such, the consumer market is brought closer to producers. One avenue for
this is to increase domestic consumption of specialty coffee. Although domestic consumption of
coffee in Peru is low, at only around 1 kilogram per capita (70% instant coffee), initiatives by the
 54

government, NGOs, and producer organizations aim to promote the consumption culture of
specialty coffee. As urbanization continues, the demand for Second and Third Wave specialty
coffees, seen as beverages of postmodernism (Roseberry 1996), is likely to increase.
Competitions such as the Cup of Excellence have been successful in connecting producers and
buyers, and I suggest that similar events could be expanded in producer countries. For example,
organizing competitions on coffee varieties, roasting, or brewing could increase the attention paid
to specialty coffee.
Another scenario involves integrating farmer perceptions and values into the assessment
and grading of specialty coffee. In chapter three, I have described how some farmers link their
sustainable and organic farm practices to the notion of specialty and quality. Currently, quality
and value are mostly based on the sensory properties measured by cupping protocols, which do
not take into account the environmental and social sustainability practices valued by farmers. By
integrating these practices into the standards for specialty coffee, farmers can play a larger role in
the creation of symbolic value. In this way, the specialty coffee market can be more inclusive and
empowering for farmers.
Looking at the bag of specialty coffee I just received by mail, I have more questions
about the coffee than I did when I started this research. Previously, the information on the bag
about the location of production and branding about taste, quality, and provenance gave me a
sense of connection with the coffee's farmer. However, it now leaves me with a feeling of
distance. How did the farmer value his coffee himself ? And did the extra money I paid for the
specific qualities of this coffee actually benefit the producer? My mind wanders back to Peru, to
the moment when I roasted and brewed coffee with the farmer Álvaro at his farm in Los Robles,
located at an elevation of 1800 meters above sea level. That was a moment of true
connectedness.

Figure 7.Álvaro’s kitchen view.

 55

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