Victor Quiñones Coco Natural
Tropical and bright with lemon blossom florals. Apricot, pineapple and rockmelon.
This special microlot was produced by Víctor Quiñones and wife Octavina Gutiérrez, who grow coffee on Los Cerros, a farm nestled in the lush hills of Taipiplaya, a remote township on the outskirts of the Caranavi province. Los Cerros translates to ‘the hills’ in Spanish, a name inspired by the stunning landscape that surrounds the farm.
Víctor and Octavina are second-generation farmers who grew up in Taipiplaya. Octavina’s parents are the influential Gutiérrez family, who have played an important role in the region’s growers embracing the production of specialty coffee by adopting better farming practices. While being supported by such esteemed role models has been great help, it certainly hasn’t made establishing Los Cerros any less laborious. Like most smallholders, Víctor and Octavina relied only on each other to prepare their land for coffee production — spending up to three months levelling and planting their hilly one hectare property in 2023.
While he grew up in the region, running Los Cerros has been a homecoming project for Víctor. As a younger man, he left Taipiplaya to complete his education in La Paz. Upon graduating, he decided to start a small paper supply and photocopying business in the city, which unfortunately failed to take off. He returned to the Colonia of Flor de Mayo, with whatever remaining stock and supplies he could not sell, and completely changed his life around by pursuing coffee farming.
Fortunately for Víctor, the region is home to many farmers who work with the Rodríguez family of Agricafe Bolivia, including Octavina’s parents who gifted them their first hectare of land. Founded by Pedro Rodríguez, who is now supported by daughter Daniela and son Pedro Pablo, Agricafe works tirelessly to build the production of, and market for, Bolivian specialty coffee, through the family’s 12 farms in the regions of Caranavi and Samaipata (known as ‘Fincas Los Rodríguez’) and through Sol de la Mañana, a mentorship program that has helped hundreds of local farmers recognise and realise the potential of their land and crops.
The Sol de La Mañana program is set up as a ‘school for producers,’ starting with the basics. Bolivian terroir has great potential for productivity and excellent cup quality, but a lack of infrastructure, government support and agricultural training has resulted in a weak and unproductive coffee sector. To combat this, the Sol de la Mañana curriculum focuses on one aspect of farming at a time and covers things such as how to build a nursery, how and when to use fertiliser, how to prune and how to selectively pick. Since the initiative’s first year of operations in 2014, when the first 10 producers enrolled, Sol de la Mañana has grown to support over 100 coffee-growing families, who have seen the quality and yields of their crop increase significantly, leading to better incomes and greater financial security for producing families. Watch the video below to learn more about the program’s history:
Once enrolled in Sol de la Mañana, Agricafe’s head agronomist Rodrigo Frigerio visited the couple to help them establish a nursery with Catuaí and Caturra trees, and to give them advice on how to prepare their first plot of land for coffee. Having grown up in the region, Víctor and Octavina knew Taipiplaya’s conditions were ideal for coffee-growing, and set out to make a success out of Los Cerros. As Víctor explained, “It’s really lovely to grow coffee here because Flor the Mayo is a valley.” Their hard work has paid off, as walking between the neat rows of coffee trees they’ve planted is akin to walking on a thick, luxurious carpet. This is partly due to the region’s fertile topsoil, which is made up of around 10% organic material — five times the average.
While still under two years old, Los Cerros is already very productive. Currently, only a quarter of a hectare is yielding mature fruit, yet Víctor and Octavina expect to harvest over three tonnes of coffee cherry. To ease the load, the couple enlisted the help of four of their neighbours for the picking this year, which Víctor would then drop off each night before heading to Agricafe’s Buena Vista wet mill to deliver his crop. By using fertilising inputs received from Sol de La Mañana, and following the advice of their agronomists, the couple have guaranteed themselves a steady income. As Víctor himself told us, “I am very dedicated because the payment we receive is very good, and it makes these efforts worthwhile.”
For the future, the couple already have big plans in mind. They’ve recently purchased another hectare of land, which Víctor prepared by himself in under one month — such is his passion and eagerness. Although the property used to be a coffee plantation, it needed to be completely renewed, so it had a better chance of becoming productive again in the coming years. Víctor and Octavina are also planning to build a new home at the top of their property, and to introduce more shade trees throughout their land to protect their coffee trees during Taipiplaya’s dry season.
Head here to learn more about the wonderful Sol de La Mañana program, and here to learn more about the incredible work the Rodríguez family and Agricafe are doing in Bolivia.
ABOUT TAIPIPLAYA
Taipiplaya is a new growing region the Rodríguez family have turned their focus to in recent years. While coffee is not new to Taipiplaya, and Agricafe was already sourcing lots from producers in the region, they’ve only expanded their Sol de la Mañana program here since 2018. The township is difficult to access — the dirt roads that make up most of the three hour drive from Agricafe’s Buena Vista mill are windy and hard to traverse, but Pedro believes the potential for quality and volume found here are hard to match anywhere else in Caranavi. You can learn more about Taipiplaya straight from Pedro Rodríguez himself in the video below:
Taipiplaya’s terroir is exceptionally fertile and healthy because most of the region remains unfarmed and practically untouched. While Agricafe are hoping to establish their own farms in the township, they are already sourcing coffee from some 100 producers in the region, ten of whom are already part of the Sol de la Mañana mentorship program. In total, this volume accounts for nearly a quarter of the total coffee Agricafe process, which they are hoping to grow in the coming years. On our most recent visits, we’ve met several producers who have recently enrolled in Sol de la Mañana. While we’ve already begun sourcing their coffee, as their trees mature, our hope is to see their productions increase so they can continue uncovering more of the region’s potential.
Taipiplaya is home to some 200 Quechua families, many of whom originally immigrated from other departments in central and southern Bolivia to make a living out of agriculture. The cultural difference between the Aymara and Quechua communities who populate Caranavi is marked, with Quechua women being well-known for their round, wide-brim hats, while Aymara women tend to wear long, colourful skirts.
ABOUT CARANAVI
The inhabitants of Caranavi first started farming coffee in the 1950s, when a government-led agrarian reform resulted in small parcels of land (of around 10 hectares in size each) being redistributed back to thousands of largely Aymara families. The Aymara are one of Bolivia’s 36 indigenous nations, who originally lived on the highlands of the Altiplano (a vast plateau of the central Andes that stretches from southern Peru to Bolivia and into northern Chile and Argentina), in Bolivia’s north. Along with the Quechuas, who lived in the Bolivian lowlands, both groups immigrated to Caranavi to work in agriculture.
The municipality is located in the Yungas ecoregion, one of South America’s most fertile and diverse locations. The region runs along both sides of the Andes Mountains, and is known for the world’s highest lake, called Titicaca. In the Quechua language, Yungas translates to “the warm lands,” in reference to the rainy, yet warm climate experienced in the region. Caranavi is the epicentre for specialty production in Bolivia, with incredibly high elevations, rich soil, and wide daily temperature ranges providing the perfect conditions to produce exceptional coffee.
HOW THIS COFFEE WAS PROCESSED
This particular lot from Los Cerros was carefully hand-picked and processed on the same day at the Buena Vista washing station. This meticulously run mill is owned by Agricafe, who painstakingly process each of the exceptional specialty lots they receive separately to allow for full traceability back to the individual farmer or family.
Agricafe draw a lot of inspiration from the wine industry in their approach to coffee production, and are always innovating and trialling different processing techniques at Buena Vista. This coffee was processed with experimental techniques, part of the Rodriguez family’s long term strategy to achieve the greatest distinction and diversity in their special lots. Watch the video below to see how the couple’s coffee was processed:
Evenings at the mill are always bustling as arrivals of fresh cherries begin in the late afternoon, after the day’s picking, and continue long into the night. It is widely known around Caranavi that only perfectly ripe cherries will be accepted by Buena Vista and all lots are inspected on arrival prior to processing. In an arrangement somewhat unique to the area, many farmers use taxis to deliver coffee, and by 7 pm a long line of taxis forms along the road leading to the mill.
Cherries for this lot were delivered to Agricafe’s state of the art mill Buena Vista in the evening. After being inspected and weighed, the coffee cherry was carefully sorted by weight using water and disinfected, in a large capacity machine the Rodríguez family have dubbed ‘La Maravilla,’ which translates to ‘the wonder’ due to its efficiency. Not only does this new piece of equipment use significantly less resources than in previous years, but it recirculates water several times before it is treated and returned to the local waterways.
After sorting, the coffee was carefully washed and laid out to dry on patio for 48-72 hours, before being placed in one of Buena Vista’s ‘stationary box’ (or coco) dryers, until it reached 11.5% humidity.
These boxes are series of stationary steel containers that use a gentle flow of warm air from below the coffee bed to dry the parchment slowly and evenly. As the cherries dry, they turn a dark reddish-brown, similar to cocoa pods or powder, giving the dryers their moniker. The coffee was stirred manually at regular intervals to further ensure it dried at a uniform rate.
After three weeks, once the coffee was dry, it was transported to La Paz where it was rested before being milled at Agricafe’s dry mill, La Luna. At this state-of-the-art mill the coffee was first hulled and sorted using machinery, and then by a team of workers who meticulously sorted the coffee by hand under UV and natural light. The mill is one of the cleanest and most impressive we have seen – you can read more about it here.
