Brazil Premium Cerrado Mineiro – Sao Rafael – Natural Processed

Description

Rafael’s family has been growing coffee for over 20 years. Sao Rafael was founded by his father in 2003; the two now meticulously manage the production of around 2500 bags of coffee a year. This lot represents high-quality selections of the Catai and Acaia Arabica varieties.

Tasting notes:
A great cup from light to dark! Lighter roasts accentuate the sweet and crisp citric/floral tones while still presenting some balance with a nutty/caramel like darker tone. The sharpest tasting roast point, but we love those sweet nutty/caramel like Brazil cups. A little longer setup at light roasts is wise. As one pushes more into the medium or dark roasts, it gets a bit thicker tasting (bigger bodied) while cutting out the citric and floral tones (lower perceived acidity). Turns the cup a bit more chocolaty tasting with some roasty tones coming through at 2nd crack or darker.

Roasting Notes:
Versatile coffee good from light to dark. A little chaff heavy being a natural but roasts pretty even. Super light or super dark were the least favorite roasts for everyone here. A nice medium to borderline dark roast presented the cup nicely. For espresso, good to get a little fuller roast, turns nice chocolate in the shot.

American colonists had been drinking coffee for fifty years before the first coffee seed was planted in Brazil in 1727. A hundred years later, Brazil accounted for 30% of the world’s coffee supply. A hundred years after that, in the 1920’s, Brazil held a virtual monopoly, producing 80% of the world’s coffee. Although Brazil’s market share peaked at 80% in the 1920’s, its continuing status as the world’s largest coffee producer still gives the country considerable influence on the market and coffee prices. It is said that when Brazil sneezes, the coffee world catches cold. In 1975, a “black frost” destroyed over 70 percent of the crop in Brazil and coffee prices doubled world-wide. Brazil was a founding member of the Pan-American Coffee Bureau, which invented the concept of a “coffee break,” during an advertising campaign in the early 1950’s.

The U.S. state of Maryland is not large enough to contain all the coffee plants in Brazil, even if every inch of the state was growing coffee. Over 300,000 coffee farms in 2,000 cities grow coffee in Brazil. Although some of Brazil’s 30 coffee growing regions are home to the world’s largest coffee farms, there are also small and medium sized farms.  With so much land devoted to coffee, it’s no surprise that  over 40 species coffee plant can be found growing in Brazil, but the most common are Yellow Bourbon, Acaia, Yellow Catuai, Red Catuai, and New World. While the amount of washed coffee coming out of Brazil has increased steadily over the years, the vast majority of coffee is still produced using the dry method.