About the Coffee
Flavour description: A light-bodied cup reminding of pear cider. The coffee has flavour notes of melted butter, lime and hints of elderflower with a finish of cacao.
Colour: Light lilac
Category: Curious
Producer: Carmelita Urduvi
Location: Copacabana, Caranavi, Bolivia
Farm Name: Carmelita
Farm size: 3 hectares
Varietal: Java
Harvest: September 2019
Elevation: 1550 – 1850 MASL
Processing: Fully washed
Fermentation: Full wet for 16 hours, first 8 with no water, then 8 hours with water.
Drying: Mechanical for 46 hours after the professor Favio Borem's guidelines with a quicker drying phase in the beginning and a slower process towards the end of the drying.
Roast: A fairly long profile landing in light to medium roast level. Roasted to present the natural characteristics of the coffee.
We remember when Carmelita planted the Java-varietal at her farm, four years ago. The idea of one of the floral varietal being produced by Carmelita's and her very elegant and crisp taste profiles seemed like a dream-profile. And now, the first production is here! It is a total of 660 kilos of it and we are very excited to present it to you!
Drop Coffee has bought from Carmelita ever since she re-started her farm after being hit by leaf rust. Carmelita is one of the strongest people we have ever met in coffee.We have seen her farm grow from half a hectares with low production to three hectares with beautiful and lush production, all apart of the sustainability program Sol de la Mañana that won the SCA Sustainability Award for Most Sustainable Business Model 2019. Over the past four years, Carmelita has more than tripled the production from when leaf rust hit her farm a decade ago, and we are proud to hold the European exclusivity on the coffee from Carmelita.
Bolivia is a remarkable country, extraordinary high altitudes and mountains everywhere. But also it's diversity in coffee takes our breath away. Compared to most coffee we hold from Bolivia, the coffee from Carmelita is slight crisper. This is probably is a positive outcome of Carmelita always washing down the coffee cherries after picking the cherries, before delivering it to Agricafé, who is processing the coffee and exporting it to us. On top of this, Agricafe has a new direction in the processing of the coffee, where bacteria is controlled. This means that the coffee will be even crisper this year!
We are thrilled to present the first production of the Java Varietal from Carmelita. Hope you will love it!
Carmelita Urduvi
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.
Carmelita Urduvi has been working in coffee for 40 years. Originally she is from Omasuyos, near the lake called Titicaca. She moved with her husband to Caranavi when a government led to reform and gave the land back to thousands of indigenous families. Since then they had 8 children. Carmelita raised their children while running the farm after her husband disappeared. Carmelita told us that the management of the farm is her greatest achievement, and yes we are all impressed by her extraordinary producing standards and the farm is always clean, tidy and in great shape. Her oldest son works full time on the farm throughout the whole year, another two of her sons work for our exporter Rodriguez Buena Vista farms.
Unique to anyone else we have met in Bolivia, she 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.
Relationship and sustainability
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. After being hit with leaf rust about six years ago, she joined the sustainability project Sol de Mañana and started growing new plants of Caturra. Carmelita’s farm is three-hectares, triple the size it was before.
The FOB-price paid for this coffee is $6/lb.
Watch a short interview we did with Carmelita while in Bolivia here.
