While coffees from Peru’s Cusco region have been a fixture of Passenger’s menu for a number of years, this 2021 harvest selection is the first that we are presenting as a Foundational offering. As with our five other Foundational Partnerships (Agaro, Daterra, Divino Niño, Heza, and Montecarlos), we hope to gradually broaden our buying in this region year after year with two primary goals: (1) contributing to a more viable business proposition for this community of coffee farmers and, (2) offering highly consistent, beautiful coffees from this region to our partners and customers year after year. Coffees from Peru’s Cusco region have been a fixture of Passenger’s menu for a number of years, but 2021 marked the beginning of Cusco’s tenure on the Foundational menu. The vast majority of coffee producers in this mountainous region are smallholder farmers in the truest sense, with an average farm size of 2 hectares (a little less than 5 acres). Thanks to local government support that facilitated access to fertilizers, tools, and improved wet mill infrastructure, many farmers in Cusco were able to improve their production yields and overall quality in recent years. However, for a significant percentage of this community, the challenge of gaining access to specialty buyers willing to pay higher prices for their coffee on a consistent basis has prevented many from securing a stable and meaningfully improved income. Passenger’s green buying team continues to work, in collaboration with our sourcing partners at Caravela Coffee, to broaden our annual buying from a small group of producers in the province of La Convención. As these sourcing efforts gain focus over time, we are truly excited for our menus to feature a broader representation of the beautiful coffees of this region.