About This Coffee
José Reinaldo Borges has coffee in his blood. His grandfather owned a farm near São Paulo where he cultivated coffee. After they sold the property, they moved to the city where their son, José’s father, worked for a few years as a young adult. After becoming unemployed, he returned to the countryside. José’s father was happy in the countryside and even happier once he began cultivating coffee again. In 1993, he purchased Sitio Fortaleza and moved there with his son, José, and the rest of the family.
Today, José is proud to continue the family tradition of coffee farming. José focuses on specialty production and uses the utmost care to ensure that he’s producing high-quality coffees. This Natural lot is sweet and chocolatey with cacao nibs, stone fruit and apple.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
Unusually for Brazil, coffee is selectively hand harvested. Ripe, red cherry is laid in thin layers on patios to sun dry. Cherry is raked frequently to ensure even drying. It takes up to 17 days for cherry to dry.
About APAS
The Associação dos Produtores do Alto da Serra (APAS) was founded in 2006, to help producers organize in a collective way. Working together helps producers improve coffee quality, increase profitability and provide a better quality of life. In 2013, with help from SEBRAE and EMATER, the association achieved its Fairtrade certification, making it possible to reach many of their goals. In 2019, they started Alto da Serra Producers' Cooperative (APASCOFFEE) with the intention of streamlining the marketing process and exporting with an emphasis on specialty and certified coffee.
Topazio
Topázio (also Topacio) was bred in Brazil the 1960s by the Agronomic Institute of Campinas (IAC). The variety is a cross between Mundo Novo and Red Catuaí. That offspring is then crossed again with Catuaí. The resulting plant is short with high reproductive capacity and a long lifecycle. Its cherry is yellow with good uniformity.
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.