Venezuela: Alfredo Rojas - Finca Berlin

Honey Process ∙  Medium Roast

Cooked fruit with mild clove, tart acidity, and mellow sweetness. 

Grown at 1100 Meters Above Sea Level (MASL)

Finca Berlín is located in the Junín municipality, near the town of Rubio. It is 8 hectares of land, with 45,000 coffee trees growing in the shade of guamo and banana trees. Rojas grew up on a coffee farm with his grandparents, who instilled in him a love and passion for cultivating coffee. The Berlín farmland, dating back to the late 1800s, was first owned by German families who farmed and exported coffee to Europe. It was abandoned after that and required big investments and renovations to turn it into a specialty farm.  Berlin has produced coffees that received excellent scores in the Venezuelan coffee competition. It offers washed, honey, and natural process coffees, adding prolonged fermentation and oxidation steps. Rojas also sells seeds from his Monte Claro trees to

other farmers, he operates a coffee shop and roastery in Caracas, and he invests in processing facilities. He implements heavy intercropping and does not use chemical herbicides. His farming practices enhance quantity and quality while minimizing environmental impact. He has cultivated a culture of respect for the generations of farmers who came before him, and the culture on his farm is one of enthusiasm and respect for his roots.

Many specialty coffee drinkers have likely never tried Venezuelan coffee, and there are two main reasons for this. First, Venezuela's coffee culture has been heavily influenced by Italian immigrants, leading the country to consume nearly as much coffee as it produces. Second, the economy shifted from an agricultural dependence to an oil-based economy in the 1970s. In 2003, President Hugo Chavez implemented policies that set price limits on coffee to control inflation. Unfortunately, these policies made it difficult for producers to profit from their crops, resulting in a significant decrease in production. In the past decade, Venezuela has experienced economic collapse, unstable political leadership, staggering inflation, and high rates of migration.

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