About This Coffee
Valdir’s father relocated the family coffee farm to Patrocínio from Paraná in 1988 when severe frosts and diseases decimated their old farm. The family was inspired by friends who had moved to Cerrado Mineiro earlier and reported that the region held great potential for coffee production.
At first, the Donato family rented land in Patrocínio. They faced many challenges, including the intensive labor demands placed on them because they didn’t have any machinery to help them reach economies of scale. However, they refused give up and, in fact, their early focus on producing high quality coffees made them well-positioned to take advantage of the increased interest in specialty coffees that has continued growing since the early 2000s.
Cultivation
Another beneficial side effect of their smaller scale is their cultivation methods. Even as the farm has grown in size and success, Valdir continues to use a majority of organic fertilizers including animal manure, pulled weeds and compost. Combined with his belief that “love, dedication and hard work” produce the best quality coffees, Valdir and Fazenda Salitre continue to offer high quality specialty coffees.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
After harvest, cherry is pulped and laid to dry on patios. While sun drying, cherry is carefully monitored and turned frequently.
About Cerrado Mineiro
The Cerrado Mineiro is a mix of grassy savannah, scrublands and forests with a rich biodiversity of over 10,000 plant species and 800 bird species. It is the largest woodland savannah in South America. At over 2 million square kilometers, it’s three times the size of Texas and constitutes 21% of all of Brazil’s land area.
Since the 1960s, over 40% of the Cerrado Mineiro’s original land mass has been converted into agricultural land. Coffee has been grown in the area for over 40 years and there are now over 3,000 farms, most of which are smallholder plots.
Cerrado coffee is known for its more pronounced and elegant acidity.
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.