457 Bolivia Sol de La Manana Caturra

＜Sol de la Manana＞

One of Bolivia’s best-known coffee-producing regions is Caranavi, located at the gateway to the Amazon rainforest. At Philocoffea, we have been working with coffees from the Rodriguez family every year, including the popular Alasitas, which is also located in this region.

The climate is hot and humid, and the environment can feel more like a tropical rainforest than farmland. However, the high elevations and diverse microclimates found throughout the region allow producers to create coffees with a wide range of unique characteristics.

At the same time, Bolivia’s coffee industry has not had an easy path. Due to changes in government policies, pests and diseases, and other challenges, the country’s coffee production has declined by around 80% over the past decade. Today, Bolivia exports only around 1,200 tons of coffee, making it a very small and relatively rare origin in the global coffee market.

The Rodriguez family has been supporting Bolivia’s coffee industry for many years. For more than 30 years, they have operated Buena Vista Wet Mill in Caranavi, processing coffee produced by farmers throughout the region.

However, as they witnessed the country’s coffee production continuing to decline, they began to worry that coffee might eventually disappear from Bolivia altogether. This led them to start growing coffee themselves.

Today, they own eight different plots in Caranavi, located at elevations between 1,400 and 1,650 meters. They use modern farming practices to produce high-quality coffee while continuing to support coffee production in the region.

But their goal was not simply to produce better coffee themselves.

They wanted to share the knowledge they had developed through years of farming and processing with other producers in the area, and to help revitalize Bolivia’s coffee industry as a whole.

This vision became the foundation of a project called Sol de la Manana, which means “morning sun” in Spanish.

The project began in 2013 with around 10 producers from a small rural community in the mountains above Caranavi.

The project functions almost like a “school for coffee producers,” with a structured curriculum covering everything from how to establish a nursery and manage a coffee farm to fertilization methods and timing, pruning, and sorting harvested cherries.

Before the project began, the average yield among participating producers was only around 2.5 bags per hectare. After putting the techniques they learned into practice, yields improved significantly.

Pedro Rodriguez and his team continue to regularly visit participating producers, providing technical support and advice.

These efforts have received international recognition, and in 2019, the project received the SCA (Specialty Coffee Association) Sustainability Award.

This coffee was produced using a natural process that combines a special mechanical dryer called a Coco dryer.

The machine was originally used to dry peanuts and was later adapted for coffee. The coffee is dried at temperatures above 40°C for around 35 hours, while being turned every 30 minutes to promote even drying.

This allows the producers to achieve a more consistent drying process without being as dependent on weather conditions.

For this particular lot, the coffee was dried using the Coco dryer for approximately 2–3 weeks.

We roasted this coffee to a medium roast, with the goal of bringing out its rich sweetness and complex character.

During our sample roasting, we roasted the coffee slowly for just under 10 minutes, aiming for a rounded and well-balanced cup. However, when we tasted it, the acidity felt a little subdued, and the overall impression was somewhat dark.

So, we adjusted the development time and the final roasting temperature. We wanted to retain the sweetness and body while bringing out a brighter fruit character reminiscent of berries and dried fruit.

After all, when a pleasant acidity comes together with sweetness, it can add so much more depth to a coffee!

When hot, the coffee shows notes of dried orange and almond chocolate, along with the toasty character and gentle bitterness of caramel.

A rich sweetness reminiscent of dried fruit gradually spreads across the palate. There is also a subtle tea-like quality in the finish, and something about its calm, understated sweetness feels distinctly Bolivian to me.

As the temperature drops, red-fruit acidity begins to emerge, reminiscent of red currant and acerola. As it cools further, berry-like flavors become more noticeable.

I imagine the cup as something with a brown-toned foundation from the roast, gradually revealing soft shades of orange and vermilion.

There is a gentle character to this coffee, but also a clear brightness, which makes it feel especially fitting for autumn.

Bright, juicy acidity and a calm, deep sweetness slowly blend together, creating a coffee with a subtle yet fascinating character.

We have introduced coffees from Sol de la Manana several times at Philocoffea over the years.

For me, it is a familiar Bolivian coffee that always makes me think, “Ah, this is really good.”

One of the things we love about Sol de la Manana is their philosophy: rather than keeping their knowledge to themselves, they share what they have learned with other producers so that everyone can work together to produce better coffee.

We hope that by sharing their coffee through Philocoffea, we can continue to support their journey and the challenges they are taking on.

We hope you enjoy this coffee slowly and take your time with it.