Arriving just in time for the colder months, this new comforting and warming coffee from Brazil represents our third year working with small scale growers in the Chapada Diamantina region of Bahia.
Having cupped many lots to find the right profile fit, we are thrilled to see quality grow year on year, allowing us to feature these Brazilian coffees not just in our house blends but as spotlight seasonal releases as well. Our preference has always been for coffees that are clean and sweet that taste fresh and vibrant. The same goes when we source our Brazil coffees, where we seek out lots that have a creamy body, fresh but mellow acidity and bags of brown sugar and milk chocolate sweetness. This season, as we have for the last three years, we are featuring a field blend of Mundo Novo & Catuaí cultivars, produced by a community of smallhold farmers in Chapada Diamantina. We always try to eschew buying from large landowners with sprawling estates, and through Ofi sourcing we have been able to collate the work of several farmers who tend to coffee on around 20 hectares, whilst supporting a tree planting program in the community to promote biodiversity, increase shade coverage on the farms and facilitate carbon capture.
The Farmers:
Around 30 families are ultimately responsible for growing the coffee cherries that have made their way into this community lot, named ‘Saravá’ which loosely translates to “Respect” or “Blessing”. The cultivars are Mundo Novo and Catuaí. The farms span from 900 to 1,300 metres above sea level. Joel Marques de Oliveira is one producer, whose farm Rio Brilhante is in the locale of Ibicoara. He has been motivated to pursue specialty coffee production having won awards for cup quality in 2019. Another producer is Nilson Aguiar Ferreira, who grows coffee on Fazenda Encanto up to 1,100 metres. He learnt the ropes of coffee production from his parents and has been working here since 1997.
Their Approach:
We predominantly buy washed coffees, as we love their clarity, vibrancy and clean taste. In Brazil it is highly unusual to see any fully washed lots, with ‘pulped natural’ or honey processing more the norm and ‘natural’ or dry process also common. With our Saravá blend the harvested cherries are initially depulped and put through a demucilaginator or ‘mechanical washer’ which removes the fruit mucilage, bypassing the need for fermentation and decreasing the water requirements. The parchment is then slowly dried with a minor amount of residual mucilage present. These coffees are bought and enjoyed for their softness, sweetness and charm, so we don’t get as much of the brightness and clarity you might see in our range of washed coffees. They will offer a nice synergy in milk drinks, a creamy body and a long-lasting finish.
Mundo Novo represents a natural cross between Typica and Bourbon that was initially noted in Brazil in the 1940s. Over the subsequent decades, breeding programs in Brazil have made refinements and selections to this tall tree, which offers a good yield and cup quality but is susceptible to leaf rust and coffee berry disease. Mundo Novo has since been cross-bred with Caturra, which itself is a dwarf mutation of Bourbon, to create Catuaí. It’s compact nature allows a denser planting, and the tree itself is quite productive. Catuaí has been far more popular in terms of spreading to other producing countries, Costa Rica in particular.
This season the cup is offering creamy hazelnut tones, flavours of currants and a very complex honeycomb type sweetness that lingers on and on. Perfect for the colder weather and to savour over the festive period. Enjoy!
