About this Coffee
Tarcízio Aldo Zugliani bought Fazenda Sao Francisco da Bela Vista in 1993. Over the years, he has made big improvements to the infrastructure of the farm. He built coffee drying terraces and invested in better processing equipment and rotary dryers. He replanted the farm with young seedlings to increase productivity and quality. Through soil analysis, he also determined specific coffeefarming methods and improved input efficiancy. All these steps increased overall quality and helped produce this Yellow Catuai Pulped Natural lot, which has a classic cupping profile with soft acidity, yellow fruits, chocolate and a good body.
Harvest & post-harvest
There are a growing number of farms in Brazil that are focusing more on cup quality than volume. These farms approach growing, harvesting and processing with a great attention to detail. The altitude and volcanic soil in Brazil are prime conditions for growing the balanced,well-bodied coffees for which the country is famous. Wide, flat farms in many regions make mechanisation easier and allow for reduced production costs, making Brazil one of the few countries with consistently comfortable margins in the face of low world prices.
The relatively flat landscape across many of Brazil’scoffee regions combined with high minimum wages has led most farms to opt for mechanical harvesting overselective hand-picking. In the past, this meant 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.
After harvesting, cherry is pulped and laid to dry in the sun on terraces. After the parchment is dried, it is sent to the COCARIVE warehouse for storage until export and dry milling.
Coffee in Brazil
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 maybe 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.
