El Placer - Perú 2015 Verified listing

Farmer: Rafael Alberto Valenzuela

CoE 2015 Ranking: 4th

Farm Name: El Placer

Vereda (Rural District): El Recreo Bajo

Municipality: Cajamarca

Department: Tolima

Has he/she previously taken part in Cup of Excellence? The farm took part in 2011 with the owner at that time, Neftalí Castro.

Score at CoE 2015: 88.75

Farmer’s Biography:

Although Rafael Alberto Valenzuela is recently devoted to coffee growing, his farm does have experience in Cup of Excellence. In 2011, when its owner was Neftalí Castro, the coffee from this farm was ranked 3^rd in the competition.

Rafael Valenzuela is an agricultural engineer with the certainty that success in this type of competition is not a result of luck, but of an innovative coffee grower’s knowledge, dedication and serious work. He also acknowledges that the important results obtained by other producers have encouraged the neighbors to increasingly investigate and get interested in what harvesting a high quality-coffee means and enrolling in contests.

“Cup of Excellence is a great opportunity to show the entire world the great work that Colombia n coffee growers are doing,” Valenzuela says.

The municipality of Cajamarca (Tolima), where El Placer (Rafael Valenzuela’s farm) is located, is called the “Colombia ’s agricultural pantry,” because of the richness of products cultivated there, such as “arracacha” (tuber), bean, pea and, thanks to Cup of Excellence, a high-quality coffee.