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 Perú, home to the ancient culture of the Inca, their majestic mountain fortress Macchu Picchu, the colorful Indio markets and the cute llamas, is divided into eight main climatic regions. One of these regions, located on the eastern slopes of the Andes, is called the Selva Alta or Rupa Rupa. It is in this region that soil, altitude, rain and temperature meet to create a perfect environment for the cultivation of coffee. The Central Valley of Chanchamayo was the first region where European settlers introduced coffee a century ago. Later, cultivation expanded to the northern and southern territories of the country.
In the late 90’s, after more than a decade of political and social unrest, the economy began to stabilise and security and peace returned to rural and urban centers. This encouraged many farmers to return to their fields and Peruvian coffee production began to rise above the 2 million 60kg bag mark. Beneficial for coffee production was also the increased intervention by the world community to substitute illegal crops with legal ones like coffee. On the other hand, investments by the private export sector have been made in the coffee-processing infrastructure, which
have led to a steady improvement of coffee export qualities.
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 Today, Peruvian coffee plantations cover an area of approximately 265,000 ha with an annual production calculated at 2.6 million bags (60kg) of washed coffee which is harvested between April and October. 100% of the production is "Arabica", "Typica" and "Caturra" being the most commonly grown varieties. The average yield per hectare is 11 bags (60kg). Coffee is grown along the slopes of the 6,800 meter high Andean Cordillera, providing excellent conditions to produce strictly high grown beans. It is also worth mentioning that Perú is currently the first largest organic coffee producer in the world with annual exports of about 300,000 bags (60kg).
An estimated 150,000 families are directly dependent on coffee production, out of which 90% are small farmers (between 0.50 and 5 ha). All in all, over 1 million individuals are related to and dependent on coffee production. With total exports estimated at about $306 million in 2005, coffee is by far Peru’s largest single agricultural export good. The two main importing countries for Peruvian coffee are: Germany with 32% and the U.S. with 23% of the total annual coffee exports.
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