Tully's Tsugiki grafts endangered Typica onto hardy roots — and sells it as revived coffee

Tully's Coffee Japan buys directly from growers, and its Peruvian partners were losing the very beans that make their coffee special. Typica, an Arabica ancestor prized for sweet, cherry-like flavor, and Geisha are scarce and disease-prone, and the industry faces the '2050 problem': the land suitable for growing coffee is forecast to decline sharply as the climate changes. Rather than funding conservation from the outside, Tully's and the Cenfrocafe cooperative in Peru's Cajamarca region began working together in 2019 to make the rare beans worth cultivating again.

Their answer was tsugiki, the traditional Japanese art of grafting two plants into one. Tully's joins cuttings of Typica and Geisha onto the roots of disease-resistant, productive varieties, giving the fine beans the sturdy foundation they lack. Seedlings raised this way delivered a first harvest in 2024 and a second in 2025; the revived Typica went on sale October 15, 2025 as 'Peru Typica 100%' — 150g for 2,550 yen — in limited quantities at Tully's stores staffed by certified coffee masters, with packaging inspired by Peruvian weaving.

The wider project, 'Tsugiki: Coffee Reborn,' was run with CRAFT PR Laboratory, a team from Dentsu PR Consulting and Dentsu Inc., which framed the ancient technique as a nature-powered answer to a global problem. It contributed to producers' income and gave farmers a new sustainable livelihood, and the story traveled: Bronze in the Environmental category at PR Awards Asia-Pacific 2026, a PR Lotus winner at ADFEST 2026, and two IPRA Golden World Awards honors in 2026.