HOW THIS COFFEE WAS PROCESSED
This particular lot from the Navarro family 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 settlement.
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 family’s long term strategy to achieve the greatest distinction and diversity in their special lots.
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.
After being inspected and weighed, the coffee cherry was carefully sorted by weight using water, and floaters were removed. Following this, the coffee was placed on a conveyor belt and disinfected in a similar process used for wine grapes, and was then pulped mechanically. For this lot, onsite oenologist Iván Hugas prepared a solution (which the Rodríguez family call coffee ‘mosto’) with a carefully calculated level of the harvested bacteria or yeasts, and added it to the wet parchment as it was placed in sealed stainless steel tanks, catalysing a controlled fermentation.
The tanks were closely monitored throughout the ferment process and the coffee was removed after 72 hours, when the desired fermentation was complete. The wet parchment was then washed with fresh, clean water and carefully machine-dried using a ‘guardiola,’ a horizontal, rotating drum that gets rid of moisture by creating a warm, consistent flow of air around the coffee.
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 again (this time by hand) under UV and natural light.
