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ANNOUNCEMENTS
Brazilian Coffee News
Brazilian Coffee Associations
Brazil is a coffee giant ... largest coffee producer in the world. Largest producer of low grade arabica coffee, and a lot of Conilon robusta too. Brazil: there is some in almost every espresso you drink. In fact, some espresso is 90% Brazil. And there is Brazil in most canned coffee and big roasters' blends.
But things are changing in Brazil. Now there's the big push on behalf of Brazilian coffee growing associations to re-create the image of Brazilian as exquisite and distinctive Specialty-level coffee. A little bit of it is true Specialty coffee, and the majority is not! There just isn't the extreme distinction from cup to cup that distinguishes one regional coffee from another. Attention to good farming and processing techniques has helped, but the coffee is grown at lower altitudes than most Specialty coffee, in non-volcanic soils, in non-forested areas that are sometimes originally grassland (a reason why the "shade-grown issue" really doesn't apply much to Brazil ---the coffee farming areas had little shade to begin with.)
Am I saying Brazilian coffee is bad --heck no! I love these high-quality Brazilian coffees, and you should try it as a Full City or even Vienna roast: its great! And nothing touches a really good Dry-processed or Pulped-Natural Brazil as a base in Espresso blends. They produce more crema and body, adding sweetness and providing a great backdrop for the feature coffees. Brazil can be nutty, sweet, low-acid, and develop exceptional bittersweet and chocolate roast tastes.
The caveat is, Brazils are not dense coffee seeds: they are grown at lower altitudes than Central American coffees. Hence the very dark roasts of Brazils pick up ashy, bittering flavors. For espresso, you can roast Brazils lighter, separately, or keep the entire blend at a Vienna roast or lighter: Northern Italian Espresso re: Illy's "Normale." Note that there are 3 processes of processing Brazil coffees of interest to us; Natural Dry- Process, Pulped Natural, and Semi-Washed. They produce different types of cups. The Natural has great body, chocolate, possibly fruity notes ... and it risks being earthier and more rustic in the cup.
The Pulped Natural is when the coffee cherry skin is removed and the parchment, with a lot of the mucilage attached, is sun dried on patio or raised drying bed. This coffee cups like the fully Naturals but is a bit cleaner in the cup.
The Semi-Washed uses a demucilage machine to remove the skin and some or all of the mucilage. So the Semi-Washed ranges in character from being identical to Pulped Natural to being similar to a Wet-processed coffee (clean cup, uniform, less body, less chocolate, a bit brighter). I like good Naturals- they have more intensity, produce more crema, but I have to cup them rigorously to watch for defective cup character. On the other end of things, really clean Semi-Washed, where a lot of the mucilage is removed, do not have Brazil character to me.
Yes, these coffees score higher in the numbers, and they are now totally dominating the Cup of Excellence competition. But if you want a cleaner, brighter cup, the standard is set in other origins, not Brazil. Go buy a good Central American coffee. I want "origin character" from a coffee. I want intensity. I don't believe in a generic, universal "excellent" coffee to which all coffee origins should be compared. It's a bias I have, but for me it keeps coffees distinct, and preserves the uniqueness of the cup, and repects the coffee culture expressing itself through origin flavors.
Most quality Brazil I have found comes from the Sul de Minas, Mogiana, Cerrado and Matas de Minas regions, more specifically, from micro-climates within those regions. Cerrado region is, apparently, not a name many Brazilians recognize ... at last not those I have spoken with. Cerrado is a savana-like area, dry and flat, in Minas Gerais state. They produce a lot of coffee, and there are some unblended single farm lots that are good. Two microregions in Cerrado are of special interest: Chapadao de Ferro and Serra de Salita. People ask me about Santos coffee - Santos is a port, not a producing region. Coffee labeled Santos is pooled from market-grade lots and the lowest common denominator expresses itself as the primary cup character.
Also, there is a lot of confusion online, perpetrated by coffee merchants (mostly innocent and unknowing) between region names, farms names, and cooperative names. For example, Monte Carmelo is a town in Cerrado, not a farm, and Cooxupe is a massive cooperative. The coffee you are actually getting in a bag of this is as unknown as buying Colombian Excelso. Sometimes, it used to be a decent cup ... but no more. It's a but random, since it does not rely on any solid, trackable relationship to a farm. In fact, a quick survey of green coffee sellers online reveals to me that not a single one currently offers a farm-specific coffee (well, except us ... all ours are from single farms).
I am sorry of this sounds a little self-righteous, but the distinction here is very real, and expresses itself in very different levels of ongoing cup quality.
http://www.sweetmarias.com/coffee.southamr.brasil.html