Incredibly scented and elegant, with a refined sweetness and creamy body. Vanilla & lavender aromas complement peach yoghurt and honey.

Now in our seventh year with Valle Inca, we’re excited to share a rare Gesha from Alina Milagros Solona in Tablahuasi—limited in quantity, exceptional in quality. Available for pre-order now, this coffee will be roasted and dispatched on 12th February.

For our seventh year working with Valle Inca, we’ve sourced from both familiar and new producers, including a very special, limited lot of Gesha from Alina Milagros Solona in Tablahuasi.

The Farm:

Alina owns Inka Tranca, a 2-hectare farm in Tablahuasi, Ocabamba, La Convención, Cusco, Peru. Situated at a staggering 2,400 metres, the coffee is grown under native shade and among various fruit-bearing trees. The region has a strong community ethos and a long history of coffee production, with Alina and her neighbours practising ‘Mingas’ (communal reciprocity) based on the principle of ‘Ayni’—"today for you, tomorrow for me"—for tasks such as harvesting and pruning. Access to the farm is via a rustic wooden bridge, which Alina and her family use daily to tend to their coffee trees and food crops.

Processing Approach:

Alina employs a batch processing method, where harvested coffee cherries are first floated and manually depulped before being sealed in an airlocked barrel for anaerobic fermentation. This fermentation can be done ‘dry,’ where the mucilage-covered parchment is exposed to the elements, or ‘wet,’ where it is submerged under water. The latter ferments more slowly due to cooler temperatures, potentially leading to a more even, yet less intense, flavour development.

In a sealed environment, CO₂ builds up, depleting oxygen and altering microbial activity, which in turn influences the flavour profile. This approach allows producers to process both small and large harvests consistently, leading to greater uniformity. While pushing these ferments can introduce ‘funky’ characteristics, careful management results in a balance where the terroir and cultivar are enhanced rather than overshadowed by fermentation flavours.

After fermentation, the coffee is fully washed, with the water reserved for irrigating coffee trees. The clean parchment is then dried on raised beds for up to 20 days—an extended process due to the high altitude—before being collected by José and the Valle Inca team for storage at their warehouse in Calca.

The Cultivar:

We’ve always been somewhat hesitant about buying Gesha coffees. Originally identified in the 1930s, the variety travelled from Ethiopia to Central and South America via Tanzania and Panama. In the mid-2000s, Gesha made headlines when a Panamanian lot sold for a record-breaking $20/lb—since then, prices have continued to skyrocket, with some fetching thousands of dollars per pound.

The hype surrounding Gesha has led to significant industry challenges: healthy coffee plants have been uprooted in favour of planting Gesha, counterfeit seeds and plantlets have been sold, and expectations—both for producers seeking high premiums and customers faced with hefty price tags—have been skewed.

Rather than seeking out Gesha for the sake of it, we selectively pursue lots when they genuinely stand out. The unique climate and agronomic practices at Inka Tranca, combined with precise post-harvest processing, have amplified the cultivar’s genetic potential, resulting in a coffee that is exceptionally floral, complex, and elegant. We’re thrilled to share this remarkable lot from Alina and her family.

The Association:

When we first began sourcing through Valle Inca in 2018, the group had around 100 members. Thanks to word of mouth—farmers sharing stories of the premium prices they received through access to a more discerning coffee market—the association has now grown to around 300 producers in the Cusco region, with recent expansion into Puno.

All Valle Inca members work organically and are certified as such through the association. To join, producers must meet a baseline quality standard, influenced by factors like altitude and varieties planted. However, the driving force behind membership is each farmer’s commitment to improving quality through hard work. Valle Inca supports its members with agronomic training, pre-financing, and market access, helping to elevate both their livelihoods and coffee quality. Several of their members consistently place well in Peru’s Cup of Excellence competition.