The Bolinda colonia (small village) is located a short distance east of Caranavi, where the mill of our exporting partners Fincas Los Rodriguez are located.
To ensure only the very ripest coffee cherries are picked, it's not uncommon for producers in the program to do 7 or 8 harvesting passes across their plants. This is very labour intensive and yields smaller amounts each time, but ensures great quality. The downside is that for each delivery of cherries from Mercedes and the other smaller Sol De La Mañana producers in Bolinda, the lots are too tiny to process separately and so instead, deliveries from all the producers are combined and processed together.
All the farms in Bolinda are located over 1,550 m.a.s.l., with mostly Caturra and Catuai varietals which have a proven record of working well in Bolivia.
Sol De La Mañana producers deliver their freshly picked coffee cherries to the Buena Vista mill which is run by the Rodriguez family in Caranavi. They tend to load their pickings in bags into the back of a pickup truck and drive it down at the end of the day.
As it arrives, each sack is unloaded and checked. A sample is taken, along with lots of information about the delivery, which allows the lot to be tracked and quality results fed back to producers.
The traditional way to process coffee in Bolivia is via the Washed method, but the Los Rodriguez team have innovated and added an Anaerobic Fermentation stage which is done in stainless steel fermentation vessels. More commonly seen in breweries or wineries, these allow the absolute highest level of control in managing this process and enable the team to deliver incredibly consistent quality. Supported by the onsite lab and resident microbiologist, samples are taken and measured daily to monitor the fermentation.
- Country: Bolivia
- Region: Caranavi
- Colonia: Bolinda
- Elevation: 1,550 – 1,650 m.a.s.l.
- Varietals grown: Caturra & Catuai
