Bolivia Caranavi Rodriguez Family Finca La Linda Java Fully Washed (200g)

Description

Founded by the Rodriguez fmaily, 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. 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. La Linda is AGRICAFE’s first farm, established in 2012. Up to that point, AGRICAFE had been exclusively buying and processing coffee from surrounding small farms. La Linda became a point of innovation and best practices for the Caranaví coffee community.

“Java”, so-named for the original heirloom variety brought to the Americas from the Indonesian island of Java, was the inaugural variety used to populate the farm and remains dominant at La Linda. The Rodriguez family, founders of AGRICAFE, believed the specific climate of Caranaví was perfect for this variety. To process La Linda’s coffee, 150 pickers are employed. Cherry is depulped and fermented for 60 hours, and then dried in slow-rotating mechanical drums.  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. The quality of that coffee, however, is hardly lacking in diversity or beauty.

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 favour. 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. Bolivia is South America’s only landlocked coffee producing country, and is the smallest exporter of coffee on the continent.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.

All the hard work that the Rodriguez family put in to specialty is evident in this lot – a caramel-ly sweet, syrupy bodied coffee that works excellently as both pour overs and espressos. The fruit notes are subtle but add a layer of complexity to this delicate coffee.