About This Coffee
Fazenda Bom Pastor benefits from the knowledge of a large, coffee-producing family. The current owner, Leonardo Carvahallo Figueiredo, inherited the farm from his brother, who in turn inherited it from their parents. Figueiredo grew up running along the long rows of coffee trees and playing in fields. When he left home to live in Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, to pursue his dream of studying medicine, he could not give up his love of coffee farming.
Even as a doctor, an anesthesiologist, Figueiredo could not abandon his dreams of returning to the coffee farming world. When his brother, who ran the family farm, was discouraged by low prices and difficult growing conditions, Figueiredo returned home to help. Today, Figueiredo still works as a doctor; however, he and his family always return to the farm on weekends and throughout the harvest season to oversee activities on the farm and ensure excellent quality.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
Unlike many farms in Brazil, all harvesting at Bom Pastor is done manually. While this adds to production costs — minimum wage in Brazil is relatively high compared to neighboring countries and labor is often short — it remains necessary in more mountainous areas that are difficult for machines to operate. After harvesting, cherry is laid on concrete drying patios. The cherry is raked eight times during the day, approximately every hour, and covered with plastic overnight to trap in heat. The cherry dries on the patios for approximately 10-12 days before it is bagged and brought to the local mill.
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.