Overview
Our first Brazilian release of the year is from a new-to-us producer and growing region, but sourced (of course!) via our longest green buying partnership with Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza (FAF). We’ve primarily honed our focus in Caconde, purchasing from FAF’s neighbors like Celso and Gertrudes or Valdir and Daniela. However, the past few seasons we’ve sought to explore coffees from an emerging region that’s quickly gaining attention in the specialty market - Espírito Santo.
We’re thrilled to have been connected to coffees from the Bermond family this year. The four brothers - Chico, Luciano, Jose, and Francisco - tend to their 44 hectare property in the Rancho Dantos community, along one of the westward peaks of the mountains. Francisco has specifically taken the lead on all things coffee related, including field management and post-harvest processing / drying. We’re consistently impressed with the flavor profiles found in coffees from this area of Brazil. Coastal clouds create a microclimate that has much cooler temperatures and higher humidity than other growing regions - delaying cherry ripening and boosting overall complexity of flavor in the cup.
Our offering from Familia Bermond is unlike most other Brazilian coffees that we’ve released and goes against the many sensory stereotypes that accompany coffee from Brazil, such as predominantly earthy and nutty flavors. This elegance and clarity of this coffee allows many softer flavors to shine through, like melon, pear, and honey. It’s definitely a fun one to taste side-by-side with our other Brazil offerings! We’re tasting: pear, green grape, honeydew melon, orange, honey, vanilla, nougat, coconut, hazelnut, almond butter, milk chocolate.
Relationship
Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza (Environmental Fortress Farm) is the premier coffee farm in Brazil and a leader amongst the international coffee community. This is our oldest producer relationship, dating back to our humble beginnings in the early 2000s, when we first met Marcos Croce, Silvia Barretto, and the family. With quality control spearheaded by their son and our dear friend, Felipe Croce, the attention to detail in terms of lot selection and separation is paralleled by few companies the world over. We have sourced different lots from their farm and many of the connected farms working under the FAF banner over the years. As their knowledge and skills of organic farming and proper processing techniques continues to grow, so does the network of other families that are working with FAF and adopting the same methods. Their goal is beautifully simple - promote total coffee quality and sustainability and find other farmers who share the same desire. For the FAF family, this concept of total quality is “found at the intersection of sensorial quality with holistic sustainable practices that ensures quality of life for all involved. Coffee quality comes first, and it is what gets you in the door. This must be followed up with more farms switching to organic or more sustainable alternatives. Planting new varieties, improving processing, and producing better tasting coffee. Building a new generation with a bright future.”
FAF’s vision of how to properly treat our planet and our environment is truly inspiring. They’re consistently raising the bar for the model of sustainability in coffee production, not only for Brazil but for the entire world.
FAF shares: With altitudes ranging from 1000-1400 meters, this coffee is all family farmed. Instead of treating coffee as a homogenous product, we believe in focusing on smaller lots and harvesting unique flavors. We are a network of farmers working together and exchanging information in order to innovate, evolve, and produce some of the most special coffees in the world. Our philosophy is to achieve the highest quality out of each bean, while taking into account social and environmental responsibility. Our agricultural methods aim to produce in harmony with nature. This means both utilizing nature to create a healthy balance of shade and rich soil, respecting the habitats of animals and keeping springs and waterways clean.
Processing
FAF works with specific leaders in different growing regions who serve as point people to assist with organization of farmers and coordination of spreading information. In the particular case of the Espírito Santo, we have Rafael Marques. Rafael and Franciso work closely together each season to make strategic investments and improvements in processing protocols.
The topography in Espírito Santo is relatively a bit more mountainous and humid, with many unique microclimates. This makes natural processing difficult; and thus, washed and honey methods are more common in the area. Most of our offerings have historically been either washed or natural processed. So either the skin and mucilage has been totally removed from the seed, or the cherries have been dried whole without removing anything. The honey process falls somewhere in the middle of these two.
The skin of the coffee fruit is removed via a depulper, like a washed coffee. However, it skips the fermentation step and goes directly onto the drying tables, like a natural coffee. Thus, the coffee is dried with bits of fruit and mucilage still attached to the seed. If done properly, the results are a complex mosaic of flavors pulling from the best of both washed and natural processing - vibrant, clean acidity, but incredibly sweet and silky.
Brewing
We’re finding that it takes a relatively finer grind to pull everything out that this coffee has to offer. It’s a bit hard to extract and can easily taste too nutty and herbal. Pushing extractions higher, you should find a much more intense sweetness, fruit-forward acidity, and silky mouthfeel.
If your coffee tastes overly nutty, slightly sour, and the mouthfeel is thin or watery - like boiled peanuts - try grinding finer.
If your coffee tastes more like bitter dark chocolate (versus the ideal sweeter, milk chocolate flavors) and the mouthfeel is cloying and gritty - like cocoa powder - try grinding coarser.
