CARANAVI bolivia (organic/fair trade)

This offering comes to us from a small group of 35 coffee producers high in the mountains of Caranavi, Bolivia. These are the members of the co-op APROCAFE, founded in 1999 and dedicated to ecological and fair trade certified coffee production.

Bolivia is South America’s only landlocked coffee producing country, and is the smallest exporter of coffee on the continent. The quality of that coffee, however, is hardly lacking in diversity or beauty. Bolivia’s terrain and geography is gifted for arabica production, particularly throughout its greater Yungas region (Yungas is Aymara for “warm lands”), whose mountain ranges connect the low humid Amazonian basin to the dry Andean altiplano above.

The most productive municipality in the Yungas is by far Caranavi, where 85-90% of Bolivia’s specialty coffee is produced. Caranavi’s landscape is steep, cloudy, rugged, and remote, with natural forests making up more than 90% of the territory. The coffee farms in this high and tropical climate tend to be well-managed but small, challenged by isolation and lacking in long-term industry support. Bolivian growers still often don’t have processing equipment or transportation of their own, a massive hurdle in such territory.

Biodiversity, soil health, elevation, and progressive leadership in APROCAFE all work undeniably in the coffee’s favor. Yet, facing each and every Bolivian coffee, especially the best ones, is one of the most strenuous overland transits in the coffee world, passing elevations of 4,000 meters over the top of the Andes and West to the port of Arica on Chile’s coast.

The country’s low production, select few producer groups in the specialty game, and formidable logistical challenges, means each and every arrival is something to be cherished.