Bolivia Julio Paye Caturra Washed (green)

Description

Pedro Flores (Organic)

PROVINCE: Caranavi

COLONY: Copacabana

ALTITUDE: 1500 -1670m above sea level

VARIETALS: Caturra

PROCESSING: Washed

FARM: Finca San Bartolomé

PRODUCER: Julio Paye and Lupe Medina

In the cup: Dried apricot, red apple and plum, with great intensity and clarity. Good structure, balanced with caramel sweetness and pecan.

This coffee was produced by Julio Paye Mamani and Lupe Medina from Copacabana, a small and remote settlement located 180 kilometres from La Paz in the heart of the Caranavi province. This region is the epicentre for specialty coffee production in Bolivia, with incredibly high elevations, rich soil, and wide daily temperature ranges providing the perfect conditions for exceptional coffee.

The inhabitants of Copacabana first began farming coffee around 40 years ago. The farms here are small and traditional. Almost all work is carried out by the farm’s owners and their extended families, with a handful of temporary workers taken on to help out during harvest. All of the producers at Copacabana were born into the Aymara, an ancient indigenous group that lived on the Altiplano (a vast plateau of the central Andes that stretches from southern Peru to Bolivia and into northern Chile and Argentina). The region was known for the world’s highest lake, called Titicaca, and when their families moved to Caranavi, they named their ‘colonia’, or settlement, Copacabana.

Julio and Lupe have a three-hectare farm called San Bartolomé, which is named after Julio’s father. Julio has lived in the region since he was 10. He inherited the farm from his father and together with his wife, Lupe, he has farmed the land for 25 years.

For many years Julio and Lupe (like many families in Copacabana) used to depend on the local market to sell their coffee, meaning low prices and little reliability. However, over the last decade, they have focused on producing specialty coffee. Now, they selectively pick their coffee cherries and sell their top-grade coffees for substantially higher prices to our partners the Rodríguez family at Agricafe as part of their Sol de la Mañana program. This initiative is aimed at improving infrastructure and farming practices at farms in order to create a more sustainable future for coffee in Bolivia.

(Info courtesy of MCM)