Bolivia Waliki Estate Cocoa Natural JavaCoffee Bean Intro:
Bolivia Waliki Estate Cocoa Natural Java
Bolivia Waliki Coco Natural Java
Coffee Region: La Paz
Planting Altitude: 1600 meters
Coffee Variety: Java
Processing Method: Cocoa Natural Process
Coffee Region
This Bolivian Cocoa Natural Java comes from a small estate called Waliki. The name is inspired by a local greeting meaning “How is everything?” with the response being "All good" or “Hakuna Matata.”
Waliki Estate is located in the Bolinda colony, nestled within a dense and steep valley about 10 kilometers outside the town of Caranavi in La Paz, Bolivia.
The Bolinda colony was established 52 years ago and was originally called “‘Bolivia Linda’” or “Beautiful Bolivia.” Years later, the name was shortened to Bolinda, and it is now one of the larger settlements in the area.
Waliki Estate is owned by the Rodriguez family, who also run a family business called Agricafe. This enterprise produces coffee from their own estates and sources high-quality small-lot crops from small producers in the Yungas region.
Waliki Estate spans 3.62 hectares at an altitude of 1600 meters. This high elevation helps ensure the slow ripening of coffee cherries. This gradual ripening process leads to higher sugar concentration in the cherries, contributing to a sweeter coffee.
During the harvest season, the estate hires pickers from the Bolinda community to carefully select the coffee cherries.
These pickers are trained to choose only ripe cherries, and the estate conducts multiple picking passes during the season to ensure cherries are harvested at optimal ripeness.
The estate uses crates to transport the coffee, ensuring they are not damaged during transit and allowing for air circulation to prevent unwanted early fermentation.
After selection and weighing, the coffee cherries are carefully washed and placed on raised African beds to dry, where they are turned hourly. After about a week, the cherries are moved to a cocoa dryer.
Cocoa dryers have never been used for coffee processing before, but Pedro from the Rodriguez family has been innovating and experimenting with different processing techniques. He discovered that cocoa dryers can slowly and consistently dry coffee beans at low temperatures, reducing the impact of weather conditions.
The beans are placed in large steel drums at a temperature not exceeding 40 degrees Celsius for approximately 35 hours, being turned every 30 minutes.
After drying, the beans are transported to La Paz for resting, then hulled at Agricafe’s drying facility, La Luna. At this facility, careful mechanical hulling and sorting are performed, followed by manual sorting under UV light and natural light.
This Bolivian Waliki Estate coffee is of the Java variety.
Locally known in Bolivia as the “long bean” due to its elongated appearance, its formal name is Java. Java is a very interesting variety, and its name clearly indicates a strong connection to Indonesia.
However, Java actually originated from wild coffee trees in Ethiopia’s forests, collected by local communities and then brought to Indonesia via Yemen, where it was named Java.
Initially, it was widely believed that Java was a Typica variety, but genetic analysis revealed that Java actually originates from the Ethiopian coffee variety Abysinia.
After Indonesia, the Java variety spread to nearby islands like Timor, then to Cameroon in East Africa, where it was first released for cultivation in 1980.
As for its introduction to Central and South America, it was led by breeding expert Benoit Bertrand and introduced to Costa Rica in 1991 through 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.
Java beans have long fruits and seeds, with yellowish-bronze shoots. The plants grow quite tall but yield low. Due to its outstanding flavor—comparable to Gesha—it also has stronger resistance to leaf rust and coffee berry disease, making it well-suited for smallholder farmers.
