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.

Graft scarce fine Typica onto hardy roots so farmers can grow it again — and sell the revived harvest as a premium coffee, making conservation pay.

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.

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.

Grafting attacks the real bottleneck — rare fine varieties lack disease resistance, so sturdy rootstock makes them growable at farm scale.

The revived harvest is sold as a premium product, so conservation pays the cooperative instead of asking consumers for charity.

A Japanese craft technique gives a global climate problem a distinct cultural hook that media and award juries can retell.

Work began in 2019, so the launch carried real harvests from 2024 and 2025 — not a promise.

To save a vanishing crop, restore its commercial value first: make the endangered variety growable and profitable, and the conservation story sells the product itself.

Tully's kept building on the revived variety after the October 2025 launch, and the project accumulated international recognition through 2026: a Bronze at PR Awards Asia-Pacific, a place among PR Lotus winners at ADFEST 2026, and two IPRA Golden World Awards honors for environmental and sustainability communications announced in July 2026. For the Cenfrocafe cooperative, the grafted trees mean a fine-bean crop that can survive where the original varieties could not, turning a heritage technique into a durable source of income.