Why We Love This Roast

This coffee is the antithesis of the wild & boozy anaerobics, perfume-like geshas, and fruit bomb co-ferments that seem to dominate the market these days. But don’t let that fool you, this coffee is exceptional as it has incredible sweetness and balance. We taste toffee, milk chocolate, sugar cane, date syrup, almond candy, and a hint of orange/clementine. There really aren’t many other coffees like this one, and, as is usually the case, it’s because of where it comes from.

Alto Inambari comes from the Sandia province in the Puno region along the shores of Lake Titicaca, southeast of Cusco, near the Bolivian border. Alto Inambari is named as such because it is at the highest point of the Inambari river (“alto” is Spanish for “tall”) - around 3,000 meters above sea level! The coffee is grown around 2,000 masl which is still very high for coffee. The warm days but cold nights at this elevation help slow the maturation of the coffee cherries, which is why the coffee is so sweet. The city of Puno itself is actually at nearly 4,000 masl making it the fifth-highest city in the world. 

Puno hosts a wide variety of logistical challenges ranging from inaccessibility due to its extreme remoteness, poor leadership, and lack of consistent infrastructure for bringing coffees like this one to market, leading many to stop growing coffee in favor of the less challenging and often more lucrative coca. We are lucky that Red Fox Coffee Merchants works so hard here, and has done so for so many years.