This natural pacamara was produced by David Mamani, whose farm (sitting at 1650 M.A.S.L) is located near the town of Copacabana. David Mamani is one of the standouts of the Sol de la Mañana Project—a training and mentorship program run by the Rodriguez family, long-time champions of specialty coffee in Bolivia. This lot is a great example of what’s possible through that collaboration: a vibrant coffee reminding us of tropical fruit salad.
David lives with his parents and his sister, Lucia, on their family farm. He and Lucia each manage two hectares of land, where they’re free to plant the coffee varieties of their choice and are responsible for tending to the trees throughout the season. During the harvest, the whole family works together to hand-pick the coffee cherries across the entire farm.
David’s family has been part of the Sol de la Mañana Project since 2016. Established by the Rodriguez family (Pedro and his children, Daniela and Pedro Pablo), in Caranavi, the project provides training for local coffee producers, equipping them with more effective farming practices to improve both sustainability and quality in coffee production. It guides producers through every step of coffee farming – from setting up their nurseries to the benefits of careful pruning and using fertiliser. Pedro Pablo also visits each producer’s farm every month to provide feedback on their farming practices, and they also benefit from weekly engineer visits.
The program has been an undeniable success. Producers like David have substantially increased both the quality and volume of cherries produced every harvest (in many cases, from 10 to 25 bags of cherries per hectare of their land), translating to a higher income, year on year. The members of the project also have the opportunity to sell their coffee cherries to the Rodriguez family. Each producer receives 70% of the price sold for their coffee.
The Rodriguez family takes a precise approach to processing, which is undertaken at their own wet and dry mills. This means quality assurance is built into the Sol de la Mañana Project from start to finish. After David delivers the ripe cherries to their wet mill, they add them to a tank filled with fresh water, which removes dust and debris. The under-ripe (i.e., lesser dense) cherries float to the surface, where they can be skimmed off. The remaining cherries are subjected to a controlled slow-drying process in a mechanical cacao drying machine for 100 hours (at a maximum of 35°C). Once the coffee reaches the desired moisture level, they are sent to the Rodriguez’s dry mill built for milling, grading and sorting.
This is our second year working with the Rodriguez family, and this pacamara is one of five lots that we purchased. It was harvested between June and September 2024 and landed in the UK in January 2025.
After cupping the coffee with Daniela Rodriguez at their lab in La Paz, we agreed the Free on Board price with the Rodriguez family (that is, the price of the green coffee delivered to the port of Arica in Chile). We paid the Rodriguez family directly for the coffee, with the support of Falcon who helped us ship the coffee to the UK.
For further details on the prices below visit our Transparency Page.
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