Bolivia JavaCoffee Bean Intro:

| RODRIGUEZ FAMILY

Fifteen years ago, Pedro recognized the potential of specialty coffee in Bolivia. Over the past decade, he has built a business called Agricafe, which is dedicated to establishing long-term relationships with producers based on mutual trust and benefit.

Now, Pedro Rodriguez leads his children in continuing the effort to enhance the production and quality of Bolivia’s specialty coffee.

To highlight the flavors Bolivia’s coffee can achieve, the Rodriguez family grows rather unique varieties: Geisha and Java.

| Agricafe

Agricafe exports high-quality, single-origin, and small-batch micro-lots. Most of these come from the Yungas and Santa Cruz regions, primarily exported to North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Agricafe focuses on South American specialty coffee. It was founded in 1986 when Pedro Rodriguez decided to pursue his passion for agriculture.

Agricafe relies on building close relationships with producers to create outstanding coffee. With the help of international experts, Agricafe has introduced innovative education programs and modern agricultural practices to Bolivia, aiming to further improve quality.

Coffee production in Bolivia dates back to the 1880s. Initially, large landowners were the only coffee producers, but this changed in 1991. Coffee production in Bolivia has always been small, and over the past decade, exports have continued to decline. For example, in 2010, the country exported about 70,000 bags of coffee, while in 2017 there were only 22,000 bags.

Agricafe took on the responsibility of reversing this trend and enabling coffee producers to be fairly compensated for their hard work. To drive change, Agricafe launched two projects: “The Buena Vista Project” and “Sol de la Manana Program.” Both projects are committed to supporting and sharing knowledge within coffee-growing communities, investing in smallholder farmers to improve coffee quality, maintaining transparency at every stage of production, and developing sustainable models and farms.

| Waliki

Waliki is a small estate covering just 6 hectares, located in Caranavi, the main coffee-producing region of Bolivia, at an altitude above 1600 meters. The area has a cool climate, and the coffee growing cycle is relatively long. After harvest, the coffee cherries are all sent to the Luna processing plant for processing.

| JAVA

The variety locally known in Bolivia as the “long bean” is named for its elongated shape. Its formal name is actually Java. Java is a very interesting variety, and its name clearly suggests a strong connection to Indonesia. But in fact, Java originally comes from coffee trees found in the forests of Ethiopia. These were collected by local ethnic groups and then brought to Indonesia via Yemen, where it was named Java. It was originally widely believed that Java was a variant of Typica, but genetic comparisons later revealed that Java is actually from the Ethiopian coffee variety Abysinia.

After Indonesia, Java spread first to the nearby Timor island group, then to Cameroon in East Africa, where it was first released for farmers to plant in 1980. As for its arrival in Central and South America, it was under the leadership of breeding expert Benoit Bertrand, and in 1991 it was introduced to Costa Rica via CIRAD (the Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement). The first Central American country to officially recognize the Java variety was Panama, and it came to Bolivia via Nicaragua.

As the name suggests, the long bean has both long fruit and seeds, with yellowish-bronze shoots. The plant is quite tall but has low yield. Due to its outstanding flavor—no less than Geisha—and greater resistance to leaf rust and coffee berry disease, it is well suited for smallholder farming.

| Natural process

The harvested coffee cherries are poured into a large tank, where ripe, dense cherries sink to the bottom and floaters are removed. The whole coffee cherries, with pulp, skin, and seeds intact, are placed on raised beds to sun-dry. They are turned regularly to dry naturally until the moisture content reaches about 12%, which takes approximately two to four weeks. Finally, a hulling machine removes the dry, hard pulp, flesh, and parchment layers, leaving the green bean.