Organic Certified | Bolivia Caranavi Region | Mama's Family Smallholder Cooperative Washed Typica, Caturra

Organic Certified | Bolivia Caranavi Region | Mamani Family Small Farmer Cooperative Washed Typica, Caturra Flavor Profile?

This lot comes from Caranavi, Bolivia — from a small village in San Ignacio, where four members of the Mamani family work together with their neighbors, processing coffee cherries collectively at the village's small wet mill. This year the family plans to expand their coffee planting area by 5 mu.

Bolivia's Coffee Growing Region

Bolivia is a landlocked country often called the ancient highland nation. Its coffee grows mainly on plateaus at 1,200-2,000 meters, in two principal regions: Caranavi in the north and Santa Cruz in the south, both dominated by small farms averaging 3-5 hectares. After the SCAA competition circuit began promoting Bolivian coffee in 2004, more and more lots with fresh, distinctive floral aromas built market reputations. Caranavi is the country's coffee heartland: rivers born above 4,000 meters have carved deep valleys, creating ideal coffee terrain and shaping the delicacy of Bolivian coffee. In 2006, a new highway crossing the region's infamous old "Death Road" in the north finally allowed coffee to move out fast — and Caranavi Province, the chief beneficiary, proceeded to sweep nearly every competition placing, drawing foreign buyers in droves.

Bolivia's Coffee Production System

Bolivian coffee runs on smallholders: some 23,000 family farms of 2-9 hectares across the country. Unusually, about 40% of Bolivia's coffee is consumed domestically. The varieties are all Arabica — chiefly Typica, Caturra, Criollo, Catuai, and Catimor. Harvest runs from July to November, mostly washed with some sun-dried lots, and Bolivian coffee cultivation is almost entirely organic.

Coffee Information

Product Name: Bolivia Mamani Family Small Farmer

Country: Bolivia

Varieties: Typica, Caturra

Altitude: 1500m-1650m

Processing Method: Washed, 16 mesh or above

Certification: Organic Certified

Flavor Profile

Reference flavor notes: rye and yellow plum with a rich body and excellent sweet rhythm; from the light roast comes the faint fragrance of high-mountain tea, cream, and almond-like nut tones. As the cup cools slightly, the acidity of red-fleshed plum intertwines with grape-like sweetness in harmonious balance. The mouthfeel is smooth and refreshing, finishing tea-like, with a hint of black bean and brown rice in the aftertaste.

FrontStreet Coffee's Recommended Brewing:

Dripper: Hario V60

Water Temperature: 90°C

Grind Size: Fuji Mill grind setting 3.5

Brewing Method: Coffee-to-water ratio 1:15 with 15g of coffee. First pour 25g of water and bloom for 25 seconds. Second pour up to 120g, then pause; once the coffee bed drains to half, continue pouring slowly up to 225g total. Extraction time around 2:00.

Analysis:

The three-stage pour keeps the coffee's front, middle, and back-end flavors clearly defined. The V60's many ribs drain quickly, so the mid-brew pause helps extend the extraction time.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

The Mamani family's lot is a washed coffee, and washing is exactly what gives a bean like this its clean, bright personality. In the washed method, cherries are floated and sorted, pulped, then soaked and fermented to strip the mucilage before a final wash and drying. The long soak consumes much of the fruit's simple sugars and raises organic acidity, so washed coffees tend to showcase the bean's own aromatics — clean, bright, and refreshing, with a lively fruit acidity. FrontStreet Coffee's washed lineup makes a fine tasting progression. The Yirgacheffe Guodingding Cooperative lot, processed by an experienced village cooperative team, is famous for delicate jasmine florals and bright citrus acidity, unfolding into green tea and honey tones at a medium-light roast — great as pour-over, cold brew, or espresso. Kenya's "Little Tomato" goes further with double washing — an extra wash, soak, rinse, and dry that yields an intensely juicy, sweet-tart cup of cherry tomato, dried plum, snow pear, black plum, and yellow sugar, a favorite among coffee obsessives. And Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1 explains why washing was invented in the first place: Jamaica's island climate brings shorter sunshine hours, so removing the skin, pulp, and mucilage before drying cuts drying time and keeps defect rates low — producing a fragrant, transparent-looking bean that brews into a perfectly balanced cup of hazelnut, cream, chocolate, and caramel, where no single flavor dominates. If you love the Mamani lot's clarity, all three belong on your list.