We first bought coffee from Juana Mamani in 2011, back then she was just 27 years old and had recently won second prize in Bolivia’s Cup of Excellence for her stunning coffee.
Now married to Juan Mamani (there are a lot of Mamanis in Bolivia) Juan and Juana along with their two daughters continue to grow spectacular lots on their small farm in the remote community of Uchumachi where they process their coffee on a small mechanical depulper and dry the beans on raised beds in the sun.
The Mamani Family have built up a enviable reputation for producing some of Bolivia’s best coffee and are part of Agricafe’s brilliant Sol de Mañana project which helps producers with training and necessary skills to improve the quality of their farms. You can read more about the Sol de Mañana project and our visit to the Mamani Family farm in an earlier journal post HERE
Our Bolivian beans this year have arrived in Scotland a little later than expected as a result of the massive lorry tailback on the Bolivia/Chile border. Much of landlocked Bolivia’s exports (including our coffee) must travel huge distances across the Andean cordillera, passing through the bitterly bleak 4680m high pass at Tambo Quemado on the Chilean border to access the sea ports. Thanks to the pandemic and strict Covid 19 tests taking place on the border the truck drivers found themselves stuck in hellish miles long tailbacks for days on end.
We hope you’ll agree with us that this is an origin very much worth waiting for. We’re super excited to have bought this coffee for another year running and look forward to sharing it with you. With its muted acidity and delicious notes of fig, cacao nibs and soft stone fruits, it’s a coffee to fall in love with for sure.
