More more more, and not even half way through 🙂 Another new coffee to share with you, and this one is a little special. A direct trade, and world exclusive, we buy every beans from this farm, but you can read all about this below

Another of our Direct trade coffees, this from Bolivia and organised from my trip to Bolivia last year. This is a world exclusive as we buy every bean from this farm.

The owner of this farm is Feliciano Ramos, who is 42 years old originally from the city of La Paz. His father was a potato and barley producer, where Feliciano used to help him in the production and harvest.In 2002 he decided to move to Caranavi, which is located in the sub andes valley.

Initially he rented a coffee farm for two years where he began his education in coffee, but also began saving to have his own farm. After two years, he bought a farm of around 10 hectares, Finca Loayza. The farm is located on top of a small mountain, looking out towards the high snowy peaks of the Andes. The farm only had 2 hectares of old coffee plantations. But Feliciano has continued to raise this when able to with new plant stock, selecting different varietals for the terrain.

Feliciano is married to Tomasa Condori and they have 5 children who are all of school age, but do help their parents after school with the farm.The coffee is the only source of money for the family, and it is very important that they continue to produce great coffee.

In the region of Caranavi and the Yungas valleys, there is a serious problem of coffee being ripped out and coca leaf planted (which is legal in Bolivia) but this has a big environmental impact on the soil, forests and the communities. But coffee is seen as a good alternative to this if good prices can achieved, and is much kinder to the environment. With this in mind Feliciano is currently at stage 2 of his organic certification, and will be certified organic next crop providing all goes to plan.

This coffee is sold as a washed coffee, and I guess that it is. But I think the same thing is going on here that was going on with Machacarmarca, and was puzzelling me until my visit this year. Washed coffee is normally placed in a fermentation tank to remove the sticky layer on the outside of the seed after removing the fruit. But I don’t think this coffee has been fermented, but it has been through a pulping machine a second time using the scrubber part of the pulper, then left to dry like pulped natural, just without most of the mucilage, a hybrid process that I really like the final result.

In the cup this was a tough one to nail. Very complex and lots going on. Think of it like two cups. when its warm its all acidity, loads of cherry, keylime pie with biscuit sweetness, mixed in with a dark chocolate aftertaste. But as it cools think caramel, increased sweetness and delicious mouthfeel. I am so excited to have secured all the coffee from this farm, its a huge coffee, and I am sure will be a huge one for us this year

Farm: Finca Loayza
Farmer: Feliciano Ramos Aruquipa
City: Caranavi
Region:Franja se los Yungas
Country: Bolivia
Farm Size: 10.00 Hectares
Coffee growing area: 8.00 Hectares
Altitude:1635 masl
Variety: Caturra (20%) Catuai (40%) Tipica (40%)
Type of Soil: Clay
Type of Shade: Orange,Mandarin and Inga (sinquili) Trees
Processing System: On-site wet processing, solar drying

Buy it here