In May I traveled to Bolivia with Brad Brandhorst of Larry's Beans in Raleigh North Carolina and Florent Gout and ShiYi Fu from Cooperative Coffees.  We visited three grower cooperatives that Cooperative Coffees purchases coffee from, AIPEP, PASYBOL and APROCAFE.  The trip began in La Paz, the highest capitol city in the world where we were ably and awesomely hosted by FECAFEB (Federacion de Cafecultores Exportadores de Bolivia).  We were assisted in our travels also by Lisa and Arianne.

In La Paz we attended meetings with FECAFEB to learn about their successes and challenges, and about FINCAFE their new project to facilitate financing of the coffee harvest and help coops manage their own finances.  After the meetings we saw their coffee lab and roasting operations, and visited a facility that does the final preparation and bagging of coffee as it leaves the country.  Then we headed into the Yungas, the 'transition zone' between the high plains of Bolivia and the tropical forests of the Amazon.  The Yungas is amazing, exhausting and the home to most of Bolivia's coffee producers.  High mountains and deep river valleys characterize the area we traveled in which means there are no good places for roads.  

It continually amazes me that millions of pounds of coffee a year travels these roads to the highlands for final processing and shipment to various destinations across the world.

Since we began roasting coffee from Bolivia 5 years ago, Just Coffee has been purchasing almost exclusively coffee from the AIPEP grower cooperative.  As luck would have it, AIPEP was the first cooperative we visited.  Located in Pumiri, AIPEP stands for Association Integral de Productores Ecologicos de Pumiri.   We arrived to a beautiful Bolivian style welcome with music, dancing, and fantastic wreaths of flowers and greenery. 

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Our time there was mostly spent meeting with the growers  Our conversations explored the particulars of fair trade, the costs of getting coffee to consumers once it leaves the country of origin, and the importance for us that growers are organized cooperatively.  The farmers made presentations about the coop, it's history, projects, relationship with FECAFEB and size.  We walked to a coffee parcel near Pumiri where we saw the various stages of post harvest handling of coffee, de-pulping, washing and fermenting, and drying.  We also visited a team harvesting coffee near for a farmer in AIPEP and even tried our hand at picking coffee. 

A quick look at AIPEP;

-Members 75

-Established May 1st, 2002

-President; Fernando Quijhua Chagua

-Location; Colonia de Pumiri, Canton Calama, Provincia Caranavi, La Paz, Bolivia.

-Elevation; 1200-1700 Meters

-Communities involved

Irpa Grande

Bella Vista

Pumiri

Santa Barbara

Alto Sajama

10 de Mayo

-Current production capacity; 6-7 containers

-Varieties; Typica Criolla, Catura.

On the way out of Pumiri we stopped to visit the facilities of a neighboring cooperative Mejillones in Calama.

Mejillones is a slightly older cooperative with a bit more infrastructure.  They have a skilled cupper and they graciously agreed to cup coffee with us and discuss the qualities of coffee from this particular part of the Yungas.

The cupping was a blast - as always - and it seems there may be opportunities for Mejillones to work with AIPEP in the future which will help AIPEP oversee and participate in the first drying and selection steps of the post harvest process.

At the end of 10 days of travel, after many awesome meetings with coffee growers, hours and hours and hours bouncing along the roads of the Yungas and we owe our hosts from FECAFEB and DD a huge thank you and a sincere wish that we will be able to visit again soon.