About This Coffee
Nossa Senhora Aparecida is a fourth generation coffee farm, located near Carmo de Minas in Mantiqueira de Minas, Minas Gerais. The farm has been in the family for over 60 years. Over the years, the family built lots of experience. This culminated in 2014, when a lot from the estate ranked first in the Cup of Excellence naturals competition. It received the highest score ever up to then for a natural Brazilian coffee: 92.22 points.
The Villela family accredits the quality of their coffee to attention for detail in every step of the chain, and to the location of the farm in the lush Serra da Mantiqueira. The farmlands are located around 1200 meters above sea level. Not many regions in Brazil are blessed with this altitude! Thanks to the favourable climate and that altitude, coffees from the Serra da Mantiqueira can have surprisingly fine cup characteristics, with gently sparkling acidity and fine fruit flavors.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
At Nossa Senhora Aparecida, the selectively handpicked cherries are processed the same day of harvesting. The cherries for the natural lots move to the drying patio. Here, Ivanil guards over the drying process. He rakes the cherries regularly so they dry uniformly. This is essential to not have any off flavours in the cup and to prevent overfermentation of the cherries. Once dried down to a moisture level of 12%, the dried cherries go to the granary for storage in wooden bins. Here, the beans undergo a necessary resting period to stabilize the beans. One month later, the coffee goes to the Cocarive warehouses in Carmo de Minas. Cocarive takes further care of marketing and exporting the coffee.
Coffee in Brazil
Just under 40% of all coffee in the world is produced in Brazil - around 3.7 million metric tons annually. With so much coffee produced, it’s no wonder that the country produces a wide range of qualities. Brazil produces everything from natural Robusta, to the neutral and mild Santos screen 17/18, to the distinctive Rio Minas 17/18. In recent years, Brazilian producers have also begun investing more heavily in specialty coffee production. Through our in-country partners in Brazil, including our sister company, we are able to provide a wide range of Brazilian coffees to our clients: from macrolot to microlot.
Today, the most prolific coffee growing regions of Brazil are Espirito Santo, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Bahia. Most Brazilian coffee is grown on large farms that are built and equipped for maximizing production output through mechanical harvesting and processing. The relatively flat landscape across many of Brazil’s coffee regions combined with high minimum wages has led most farms to opt for this type of mechanical harvesting over selective hand-picking.
In the past, mechanization meant that strip-picking was the norm; however, today’s mechanical harvesters are increasingly sensitive, meaning that farms can harvest only fully ripe cherries at each pass, which is good news for specialty-oriented producers.
In many cases and on less level sections of farms, a mixed form of ‘manual mechanized’ harvesting may be used, where ripe coffee is picked using a derriçadeira – a sort of mechanized rake that uses vibration to harvest ripe cherry. A tarp is spanned between coffee trees to capture the cherry as it falls.
With the aid of these newer, more selective technologies, there’s a growing number of farms who are increasingly concerned with – and able to deliver - cup quality.