Think tinned apricots up front and red grapes on the finish, but behind those fresh fruit notes is a rolling sweetness of caramel and milk chocolate.
The coffee for this lot came from a mix of Sol De La Mañana producers from the Uchamachi colonia. The largest contributor was Brenda Palli, a 29 year old producer who's been working in Sol De La Mañana since 2021. Her farm, La Hermosa, is located at 1,580 m.a.s.l. in the colony of Villa Rosario.
To ensure only the very ripest coffee cherries are picked, it's not uncommon for producers in the SDLM program to do 7 or 8 harvesting passes across their plants, many more than producers in other parts of the world do. This is very labour-intensive and yields smaller amounts each pass, but ensures great quality. The downside is that for each delivery of cherries from the SLDM producers in Bolinda, the lots are often too tiny to process separately and so instead, deliveries from all the producers are combined and processed together.
You will likely notice that there's an unusual part of the process on this coffee and instead of being a normal washed lot, it's a mosto washed. So what does mosto mean? It's a Spanish word which describes fresh fruit juices - particularly before they are fermented. The same root gives the English word for this, used in wine-making - a Must. In the case of this coffee, we feel it really helps bring out a lot of juicy, fruity flavours versus a standard washed process and we hope you'll agree. In terms of the specific process, here's how it works:
- You start with two batches of coffee.
- The first batch of coffee (a regular washed coffee) is depulped, fermented in a closed tank, rinsed and taken to the beds to dry.
- The liquids - the Mosto - from that first fermentation are saved, with the pH and microbial levels monitored and managed.
- Batch 2 (this will be the Mosto Washed) is depulped and the Mosto is added to the coffee.
- Once the fermentation breaks down any remaining pulp, the coffee is rinsed and dried.
- Using these fresh, already fermenting juices gives the process a kick start which seems to help develop the complex, juicy flavours in these coffees.
- Country: Bolivia
- Department: La Paz
- Province: Caranavi
- Farm: La Hermosa
- Producer: Brenda Palli
- Location: 15°48'56.8"S 67°31'40.9"W
- Altitude: 1400 – 1650 m.a.s.l
- Processing method: 48hr Mosto Washed Fermentation
- Varietals: Caturra & Catuai
- ESPRESSO RECIPE
- Dry dose: 17.5g
Time: 30 - 32 sec
Wet weight: 36 g
FILTER RECIPE - Suggested method: V60
Dry dose: 15g
Water: 250ml/ 97°C
Time: 3 - 4 mins
We omniroast our beans to suit any brew method. To find the method that suits your kit, check out our Brew Guides.
Brenda Palli & Sol de la Mañana
Brenda Palli is a 29-year-old smallholder producer with a farm called La Hermosa – The Beautiful – sitting at 1,580 metres above sea level in the colony of Villa Rosario, in the Uchamachi area of the Caranavi region. She joined the Sol de la Mañana programme in 2021, making her one of its more recent graduates. We didn't get to meet her during our visit for the harvest this year, but her coffee made quite an impression on the cupping table – which is, ultimately, what matters most.
Sol de la Mañana – morning sun – is Bolivia's first producer mentoring programme, established by the Rodriguez family and their exporting company Agricafe in 2014 after a group of local smallholders approached them asking for help. What they built functions essentially like a school: a structured, multi-year curriculum covering everything from nursery management and soil nutrition to selective harvesting, disease prevention, and financial planning. When the programme started, most participating farms were producing just two to four bags of green coffee per hectare – partly because producers had little training, and partly because the only time many entered their land was during harvest season. Today, producers on the programme regularly achieve yields of 20 bags per hectare or more. Each producer receives 70% of the price their coffee sells for, ensuring that the improvements in quality translate directly into better livelihoods. It's a model worth paying attention to – and producers like Brenda are exactly why.