Bolivia: Pedro Flores, Fermented Natural

Our Bolivian exporter, Agricafe, was founded by Pedro Rodriguez in 1986 and is run today by him and his children – Pedro Pablo and Daniela. Pedro discovered the coffee industry when he was young and fell in love with the Yungas – the traditional coffee growing area north of the Bolivian capital La Paz.

Pedro has watched the coffee world change radically in his lifetime, he saw the cost of producing coffee in Bolivia climb ever higher and the prices being paid creeping lower. When speciality coffee came along he saw an opportunity for Bolivian coffee which has lots of the things needed for great quality potential – perfect weather and soils for coffee plants, high elevations, and small producers with a strong connection to their land.

The years from 2000 – 2010 saw a crisis in Bolivian coffee at the same time specialty was emerging on the world scene. Facing challenges on all fronts, many Bolivian coffee producers gave up and changed to easier crops, particularly Coca, which is consumed as a leaf tea or chewed in Bolivia to help with altitude sickness. Pedro saw the rapidly dwindling number of producers and knew that keeping the same model he had – of sourcing coffee cherries from groups of local producers and processing lots for export – wasn’t going to be sustainable. He began two initiatives which have transformed the company and have allowed it to thrive in a country which is still deeply challenging to be a coffee producer.

One project was to buy their own farms – Fincas Los Rodriguez. This has allowed them to bring innovative and experimental agronomic and coffee processing techniques to Bolivia, such as trialling many new plant varietals, pruning and planting systems, and creating new cherry processing styles. The other project, which we’re focusing on today, is Sol De La Mañana.

Meaning the Sun of Tomorrow, this program supports small local producers to increase their long term efficiency and quality of production so that they can become sustainable. The Los Rodriguez farms play into this, with the varietals, techniques, and processing which they develop on the farms being passed on to the Sol De La Mañana producers.

The producers (mostly with less than 2 hectares each) get support in understanding not just coffee agronomy but cupping, the coffee markets, and much more. The coffee from these producers is delivered to Agricafe’s mill – Buena Vista – in the evening and processed there. Each lot is rigorously separated, measured and controlled to ensure the best quality for the coffee. In Bolivia, even a small portion of the coffee harvest earning less than a good speciality coffee price would be devastating to the producers.

Pedro Flores has about 2 hectares of land near the town of Copacabana in the Caranavi municipality. His land spreads across a ridge and he’s very aware of how the plants react differently depending on the slightly different climate they experience on one side from the other. This Caturra lot has been processed in a new method which the Buena Vista mill has just started using for this harvest. They call it Fermented Natural and the flavour might give away why!

After arriving at the mill for processing, the freshly picked coffee cherry has an anaerobic rest phase in a sealed barrel with water. The fruit begins to break down and fermentation begins to happen. This process is carefully monitored by the team for pH, microbial cell count, temperature and time - when they think the coffee is ready, it gets emptied out of the sealed barrel and moved to dry on raised beds.

The process can tend to bring out dark chocolate notes and more body, but can also add funk, depending both on how the team at the mill manages the variables or simply depending on the individual coffee too.

A complex, funky but elegant natural processed coffee this starts with creamy dark chocolate mousse. There's a twist of orange zest alongside that, but as it cools it swings towards juicy raisins coated in yoghurt.

• Country: Bolivia
• Region: Yungas
• Municipality: Caranavi
• Town: Copacabana
• Farm: Villa Rosario
• Altitude: 1,500 m.a.s.l.
• Farm size: 2 hectares
• Producer: Pedro Flores
• Varietal: Caturra
• Processing: Fermented Natural

Tasting notes: Dark chocolate mousse, yogurt coated raisin, orange zest.

Cup of Excellence Cupping Scores

• Clean cup: (1–8): 6.5
• Sweetness: (1–8): 6.5
• Acidity: (1–8): 6
• Mouthfeel: (1–8): 6.5
• Flavour: (1–8): 7
• Aftertaste: (1–8): 6.5
• Balance: (1–8): 6
• Overall: (1–8): 7
• Correction: (+36): +36
• Total: (max. 100): 88

Roast Information
Medium: expect a good amount of noise as this coffee goes through crack, then aim to push it through the gap, but finish before second crack begins.