Over the last decade Pedro Rodriguez has worked tirelessly to build the production of, and market for, Bolivian specialty coffee, helping hundreds of local farmers recognise and realise the potential of their land and crops.

Recognising Bolivia’s great potential for coffee-growing, Pedro his career in coffee building long-term relationships with producers based on mutual trust and benefit through visionary business Agricafe. The business is run by a dynamic and passionate team, including Pedro’s son, Pedro Pablo, and daughter, Daniela, and have found incredible success in the specialty coffee industry by focusing on sustainability and innovation. Today, Agricafe owns 12 farms and around 130 hectares of coffee under the banner of ‘Fincas Los Rodríguez’ and represents over 200 smallholder producers as part of their Sol de la Mañana program.

At all Fincas Los Rodriguez, pickers from the Caranavi community and the state of Beni are hired to carefully handpick the coffee during the harvest. These pickers are trained to collect only the very ripest cherries, and multiple passes are made through the farm throughout the harvest to ensure the coffee is picked at its prime.

Cherries for this lot were delivered to Agricafe’s state of the art mill Buena Vista in the evening. After being inspected and weighed, the coffee cherry was carefully sorted by weight using water and disinfected

Coffee was then carefully washed and laid out to dry on patio for 48-72 hours, and then placed in one of Buena Vista’s coco dryers, until it reached 11.5% humidity.

These boxes are series of steel containers that are typically used for drying cocoa pods. They use a gentle flow of warm air from below the coffee bed to dry the parchment slowly and evenly. Coffee was stirred manually at regular intervals to further ensure it dried at a uniform rate.