Bolivia: Gutierrez Family Coffee

There's an immediate hit of pineapple as you take your first sip, which softens into fresh apricot and tangerine as the coffee cools. A well-rounded cup with a clean, bright finish.

The Taypiplaya region near Caranavi is a lush, high-altitude area in Bolivia that’s long been a source of excellent coffees. The vibrant coffee-growing community is known for its high-altitude farms and rich biodiversity. It’s one of the country’s most important regions for specialty coffee, with smallholder producers commonly cultivating varietals like Caturra, Catuai, and Typica which grow very happily in the area. Roland visited the Gutierrez family farm on his most recent trip to Bolivia. The small estate is typical of Bolivian smallholdings at roughly 3 hectares in size - well organised with neat areas of Caturra, Catuai and Typica. The family have invested in new plantings in the recent past, with some of their trees still quite young, only on year 2 or 3 of harvesting.

We’ve sourced coffee from the region in previous years but these had to be blended lots, often made up of contributions from multiple smallholders, which meant we couldn’t always trace the coffee back to individual farms. Thanks to improved traceability and deeper collaboration with the Sol de la Mañana program, we’re now able to showcase single-producer lots like this one from Victor. Roland was particularly excited about this new development for our 2025 Bolivian coffees and said, "It’s a significant step forward - not just for transparency, but for recognising the skill and dedication of individual farmers whose work could otherwise go unnamed".

Most coffee producers in the Yungas are from the Aymara indigenous group. Taypiplaya, however, is mostly populated by producers from the Quechua group. Many came there for gold mining or other work, leaving lives in other parts of Bolivia, but discovered that Taypiplaya, though isolated, is verdant and an ideal agricultural area. The Gutierrez family are one of 18 Sol de la Mañana members farming in Taypiplaya. The program began nearly a decade ago when a group of independent producers asked the Rodriguez family for help improving their coffee production.

What started as a small initiative has grown into a comprehensive support system for over 100 Bolivian coffee producers. This long-term development program functions like a school for coffee producers, offering hands-on training in agronomy, harvesting, and post-harvest practices. Through this 7 year program, smallholders are empowered to refine their approach to farming, adopting more structured and sustainable practices that result in healthier plants and higher-quality coffee. By investing in education and infrastructure, the program helps producers like Victor build thriving farms and produce coffees that meet the highest standards of the specialty market.

The Gutierrez family, like many producers in Taypiplaya, grow coffee but don’t have the infrastructure to process it. Instead, they deliver their freshly harvested cherries to the Buena Vista mill in Caranavi, which is owned and operated by the Rodriguez family. This world-class facility is designed to handle coffee with precision and care, ensuring that each lot is processed to the highest standards. Agricafe’s washed processing is a meticulous, multi-stage operation designed to highlight clarity and terroir. After selective hand-picking, cherries are depulped the same day and fermented in tiled tanks for up to 72 hours. The coffee is then washed, graded by density, and dried slowly on raised beds or patios. The process is supported by an on-site lab, where samples are taken and measured daily to guide fermentation with precise data.