Updates From The Road: Bolivia 2024

Get ready – our fresh crop Bolivian lots have hit the water! We’re in the final stages of confirming our spot list, which is expected to arrive in March 2025. Sourced via longtime partners Agricafe Bolivia, this year’s shipment is made up of exceptional coffees from the Rodríguez family’s own farms and from members of the Sol de la Mañana mentorship program. Volumes are extremely limited, so get in touch now to enquire about your favourites. 

Excited about the coffees? Read on for our insights and updates from our latest trip, including an overview of the 2024 season and what to expect for our incoming offerings!

Published 14 January 2025

Agricafe Bolivia came into the country’s latest harvest with several lessons learned from the more troubled 2023 season. That year, an intense drought resulted in a condensed harvest, with much of the Caranavi region’s coffee cherry ripening at around the same time and rate, creating challenges in the operations of Buena Vista wet mill. Not only was space for drying coffees an issue, but the lack of rainfall also increased the cost of production, as Agricafe had to source extra water to complete the season. 

The Rodríguez family’s mission for 2024 was to mitigate, however possible, the complications created by the effects of climate change, through lowering their water usage, and adding efficiencies to operations at Buena Vista. In true Agricafe fashion, the family invested in a new sorting machine (affectionately named ‘La Maravilla,’ which translates to ‘the wonder’) that recirculates and retains up to 95% of the water used when rinsing and separating the cherry by density. They’ve also purchased a larger depulper that uses considerably less water. Thanks to these changes, the mill is 70% more water efficient and processing capacity has increased by 50%.

On the fields, this year’s harvest started out strong: the climate had been kind, with plenty of rains in the early half of 2024, and yields were on the rise. While heavy storms in March caused many trees to drop cherry before drought returned in May, both the Rodríguez family and the Sol de la Mañana producers they work with were feeling very positive about volumes for the season when we visited in August. For the region of Caranavi, it was a return to mild temperatures, which slowed down cherry maturation (thus requiring multiple passes), giving Agricafe enough time and space to manage the drying efficiently and carefully. For the Sol de la Mañana smallholders, this slower pace eased the management of seasonal staff, and the costs associated with hosting them during the harvest. 

Unfortunately, most Bolivians will remember 2024 as the year the country experienced its worst wildfires in recorded history, with over 10 million hectares of forest going up in flames between May and October. The smoke these created heavily polluted the air during the tail end of the harvest — making the final weeks of the picking a challenge and preventing us from visiting farms during our time on the ground. While the extent of the damage to the local environment is yet to be fully quantified, the fires deepened concerns surrounding the sustainability of agricultural ventures in the heavily affected regions of Beni and Santa Cruz (where the Rodríguez family’s Samaipata farms are found). Amid the chaos, the Rodríguezes relied on their meticulous and careful processing practices to make the harvest a success. To fulfill the task, Agricafe enlisted the help of Adrián Silva, a chemical engineer, fermentation expert and coffee roaster who travelled from Mexico to spend the harvest managing operations at Buena Vista. 

Over the last few years, Agricafe has built a robust database of the various chemical reactions they have seen occurring during fermentation. This record-keeping has informed which of the natural yeasts and bacteria found on the cherries they process are best-suited to be grown at their lab, and used to create solutions (which the Rodríguez family call coffee ‘mostos’) that are then used to catalyse fermentation. During the harvest, Adrian focused on testing the ability of different varieties to adapt to the mosto added, and their impact on flavour, to gain further insights into how to control and repeat different types of fermentation. As always, these efforts resulted in several stellar cupping tables.

Since we were unable to spend any time on the fields, most of our time in Bolivia was spent carefully selecting a line up of coffees with something for everyone. While we only sourced rare variety lots on a pre-order basis this year, we have a good number of washed Caturra lots from Sol de la Mañana producers like Julio Palli, Pedro Flores and Juana Mamani. Bolivian coffees tend to have great structure, and intense sweetness that reminds us of candied fruits, and this year’s crop is no different. The sooner you let us know you’re keen to taste samples, the better — these lots tend to sell out in the blink of an eye, and availability is always extremely limited. Get in touch now to enquire about our available lots!