Bolivia

Bolivia has always been a coffee origin with great potential, the potential to have a unique Specialty coffee offering with unique cup character.: There’s no better way to learn about a coffee-producing country than to go there! And I finally had the chance to go to Bolivia as a judge for the 2nd Annual Bolivia Coffee Competition. Bolivia has always been a coffee origin with great potential, the potential to have a unique Specialty coffee offering with unique cup character. But I hadn’t had much luck in sourcing clean, defect-free Bolivian coffee samples. In 2002-3 crop, our fortunes changed when we had an organic lot from the Aecar Co-op and it was a fantastic, delicate, nuanced cup, excellent in the lighter roasts. It was also perfectly prepared (without defects) and durable throughout the year. I was intrigued.
As it turns out, Bolivia does have all the ingredients to produce great coffee, especially in terms of altitude (plenty of that!) and seedstock: the plants are almost all traditional Typica varietal, with some Caturra. Much of the production is traditional Organic farming practice, with a lot of the co-ops certified Organic and some Fair Trade also. Germany and Holland have been buying these coffees heavily for years.

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