Bolivian Caranavi – Don Rodolfo Quispe – Honey Processed Caturra

Description

This coffee is a honey process lot from the Quispe family’s farm in Bolinda, a municipality in the mountains north of Caranaví. Don Rodolfo Quispe grew up helping his parents harvest coffee on the family land. He inherited his own parcel from his father when he married, and planted coffee immediately, which his own family now manages together. The Quispes’ farm is 8 hectares, well above average in size.

Their coffee is processed at AGRICAFE’s nearby estate. Being a honey process, cherry is pulped and immediately placed on raised screens to dry in the sun. Dried parchment is stored in Ecotact bags and is hand-sorted prior to export. Specialty groups like AGRICAFE deserve a lot of credit for their dedication to Bolivia’s coffee potential, despite the odds. AGRICAFE was established in 1986 and is a family business that manages 12 of its own farms as well as smallholder coffee from across Caranaví and Samaipata.

Tasting Notes: Crisp, clean, fruity and sweet, a slightly more exotic cup than the washed processed offerings. Still higher acidity and much more complex than the bulk of Peru, Ecuador, Colombia or Brazilian coffees. We would rank it almost closer to a nice African coffee than other South American beans. Lighter roasts show  sweet lemony floral acidity that’s pretty potent, balanced with a hint of soft fruit (pretty hidden for a honey coffee) and a clean chocolaty tone. A bit fuller bodied with richer darker tones than the washed processed offerings. This honey processed seemed the most developed at the light roast out of the three Bolivian offerings, a good sign of quality. A nice medium roast develops the cup and will be the way to go for most, brings forth the more nutty and chocolaty tones making the cup very easy to drink, but doesn’t lose that sweeter lemony floral crispness and soft fruit tones that separates this cup from average.

Roasting Notes: A bit higher chaff but will roast pretty even. Darkens up quickly so make sure you see that expansion in size before cooling if shooting for a lighter roast. The surface of the bean picking up a little sheen is a good mark for the medium roast level. A 3-4 days setup really works some magic on this cup and pops the fruit tones out decently more.

Their smallholder program, “Sol de Mañana”, began in 2013 with 10 small producers and a curriculum focused on nursery and farm management, and specialty harvesting. Organic fertilizers were made available to participants at half price and each individual coffee tree was tracked for pruning, inputs, productivity and picking. This granular attention to detail forced previously passive producers to take charge of their productivity and quality. When the first commercial harvest was sold in 2017, the success of the program attracted more producers.

It currently has 100 contributing farms and average production has increased from 3 bags per hectare to more than 20, with qualities better each year. All coffee from “Sol de Mañana” producers, such as Finca Quispe, is processed centrally by AGRICAFE on their own estates.

Bolivia is South America’s only landlocked coffee producing country, and is the smallest exporter of coffee on the continent. The quality of that coffee, however, is hardly lacking in diversity or beauty. Bolivia’s terrain and geography is gifted for arabica production, particularly throughout its greater Yungas region (Yungas is Aymara for “warm lands”), whose mountain ranges connect the low and humid Amazonian basin to the dry Andean altiplano above. The most productive municipality in the Yungas is by far Caranaví, where 85-90% of Bolivia’s specialty coffee has continued to thrive over the decades.

Caranaví’s landscape is steep, cloudy, rugged, and remote, with natural forest making up more than 90% of the territory. Coffee farms in this high and tropical climate tend to be well-managed but small, challenged by isolation and lacking in long-term industry support. Bolivian growers still often don’t have processing equipment or transportation of their own, a massive hurdle in such territory. Biodiversity, soil health, elevation, and progressive leadership in AGRICAFE all work undeniably in coffee’s favor. Yet, facing each and every Bolivian coffee, especially the best ones, is one of the most strenuous overland transits in the coffee world, passing elevations of 4000 meters over the top of the Andes and west to the port of Arica on Chile’s coast. The country’s low production, select few producer groups in the specialty game, and formidable logistical challenges, means each and every arrival is something to be cherished.