Flavour description: A bright and clean natural processed coffee with an aroma of raspberry. Flavour notes of cranberry, chocolate truffle and wild strawberries. A long-lasting bright acidity in the aftertaste. The coffee has a medium body with a fizziness reminding of raspberry soda.
Colour: Pink
Category: Curious
Producer: Carmela "Carmelita" Urduvi
Location: Copacabana, Caranavi, Bolivia
Farm Name: Carmelita
Farm size: 3 hectares
Varietal: Caturra
Harvest: September 2022
Elevation: 1550 – 1850 meters above the sea
Processing: Natural
Bolivia is a remarkable country, extraordinary high altitudes and mountains everywhere. Its diversity in coffee also takes our breath away. We are so tremendously proud and happy to present this natural processed coffee from Carmelita to you. This is a super clean natural, thanks to both Carmelitas meticulous treatment of the freshly picked cherries, but also to how controlled the processing is at the Rodriguez' process station. As is typical for a Caturra from Bolivia, this coffee has heaps of chocolate truffle mixed with a fermented tone of dried fruit and raspberry.
In 2023 we visited Carmelita, one of our most important relationships who we have not seen since before the pandemic. Carmelita is in her more mature years, and it was really good to spend time with her and see how well she is doing. Her Son Elvis has moved to the farm with his family to help support his mom in the harvest and maintenance of the farm. The farm was looking amazing and it was so good to see the extra work they were able to do with Elvis' inputs.
We have bought coffee from Carmelita ever since she re-started her farm after being hit by leaf rust. Carmela is one of the strongest people we have ever met in coffee. We have seen her farm grow from half a hectare with low yield to three hectares with beautiful and lush, tripled production. It has helped being a part of the sustainability program Sol de la Mañana that won the SCA Sustainability Award for Most Sustainable Buisness Model 2019.
We visited Carmelita for the first time in 2015, her hard work and dedication to the farm impressed us greatly. She had less than a hectare, which had a low yield, after being hit with Roja, which is why she decided to become part of the sustainability project Sol de la Mañana, which is run by our exporter Pedro Rodriguez with family. When we met, Carmelita had just prepared her land for a second hectare and was ready to start planting her new Caturra and Catuaí seedlings from her nursery. This time she wanted to do everything right from the beginning, with the help of the agronomists in the Sol de la Mañana project.
Unique to anyone else we have met in Bolivia, Carmelita is known to clean each cherry after picking and before putting it into her bags and delivering it for processing at the Rodriguez' mill. By producing a better quality coffee she is able to earn more money and have a better future for her and her children. She believes that joining the program has helped her to better understand what she needs to do in order to produce better coffee and keep her crops stronger and healthier.
Since the first time, we met Carmelita we had a strong feeling that we were going to work together. She is driven, strong and very focused on attention to details. Visiting and buying her coffee for years now, this has become one of our strongest relationships. We have done brewing classes, competitions on best Sol de la Mañana-cup (Carmelita won!), played football... but most importantly Carmelita has a steady business and she is growing rapidly but safely.
We could talk about Carmelita for much longer, and if you wish to see more of her, have a look at this interview we did with Carmelita while in Bolivia a couple of years back here, or read more here.
