10 days in Brazil and the 6th Annual Cup of Excellence

Hugh visits Brazil Cup of Excellence and reports back ......

My lasting memory of Brazil will be the stunning coffee’s that I tasted and how it changed my perception of Brazil coffee’s from good consistent blenders to exciting and brilliant varietals. There is no doubt that having clear traceabilty makes for a great story, increases confidence and yes it does make the coffee taste better ….. I have always said that coffee is sensual and intimate and the closer you can get to the source the better product you will have.

Many people only know Brazil coffee as ‘Santos’ – (remember coffee does not grow anywhere near Santos which is a port) - the bulk commodity product which is mainly processed by Co-Operatives that gather all their farms harvest together into one lot without differentiating or sorting the good from the bad. Brazil’s commercial coffee crop quality is generally poor this year due to unusual and unpredictable rains during harvest time and damage to coffee on the patios. Quite a bit of the overall Brazil crop was effected. The quality of Specialty grade Brazil is good but when the overall crop is poor quality, you will get less Specialty grade.

At the best farms like the ones I have described below, commercial bulk coffee is a by-product of making specialty grade coffee. These farms were all registered by The Brazil Specialty Coffee association (BSCA) and I was amazed at how sophisticated and demanding an organisation this was. All Coffee was from defined sources, environmentally protected, had workers’ safeguards, provided social and community support and the knowledgeable and professional growers were strictly audited and registered by a very stringent set of rules. The BSCA audit and control quality and environmental and social issues. Amazingly the logo goes with the actual coffee, not just the member. In other words, although there are 50 or so BSCA members (out of around 200,000 growers in Brazil), the coffee itself carries the logo – not the member. These members are all expert cuppers and let the coffee taste do the talking. This is unlike any other region in the world and not what I expected to see at all.

I joined the cup of excellence group in Sao Paulo on Monday. In the morning I helped judge the Brazilian Final of the World Barista Championship and while the standard was good it is very interesting to note that although Brazil is the worlds biggest producer and they are starting to drink better coffee themselves, they have some way to go with internal consumption and this is reflected in the overall quality of the drinks produced. Higher quality will always drive sales and where expectation is raised at a consumer level then we will all be winners selling far more and better coffee. The Cup of Excellence winners that were presented in the afternoon had all been cupped at least five times by three jurys and undergo critical visual inspection and milling. Cup of Excellence coffees are considered the best of that harvest. The majority of the auction proceeds go directly to the winning farmer providing much needed income in producing countries. Fazenda Recreio won overall and Joaquim José de Carvalho Dias proudly accepted his prize.
From Sao Paulo I travelled North through The Minas Gerais state where the majority of coffee is grown in Brazil. The Sul de Minas region typically produces coffees that are soft and strictly soft, heavy in body with mild acidity. For a couple of days I travelled with Stephen Hurst the Coffee Hunter who was inspirational in his search for excellence and knew the region very well. First stop was Alessandro Frossard Nogueira a young up and coming BSCA farmer who learnt English in New Zealand and Europe. He has developed his Fortaleza family farm in San Sebastio do Parisdiso producing fabulous coffee’s and has a knowledge and passion for what he does that is infectious. His yields were down this year as he stripped back many of his older trees to ensure great quality yields for the next few years. Watch out for this
guy in 2005/6.

Fortaleza Farm in Sul de Minas region.

From San Sebastio to Poços de Caldas where we met the Cup of Excellence winner 86 year old Senhor Carvalho Dias riding his horse at Recreio farm and cupped his amazing coffee’s at Bourbon Speciality Coffee in Poços. Our hosts were Bourbon Speciality Coffee Company owners Gabriel de Carvalho Dias and Christiano Ottovino who supply many big names in this country with Brazil speciality Coffee – unfortunately from the UK consumers point of view not enough! Poços de Caldas is a beautiful University City and the sumptuous and colonial Hotel Centro where we stayed (for £30 a night) is the location for next years Cup of Excellence competition so if you decide to go you won’t be disappointed.

I visited two more farms in this region and also a small roastery that supplied the local region. The challenge for this business was no different from ours in this country and that was to control how the customer brewed their products and get a deserved price from the internal market that is driven down by commercial coffee that is so widely available. They have the same difficulties as the rest of us with cost of equipment, service engineers and trainers being such a major factor in the overall price. Again the dilemma is that unless the customers invests wisely in this then his high quality coffee tastes like the rest.

Carvalho Dias new plantation outside Poços de Caldas

From Poços – and a 5 hour taxi drive later – I arrived in Santo Antonio to be looked after by Henrique Dias Cambraia. Henrique owns the BSCA registered Cambraia Farm and also runs the San Antonio Estate Group a co-operative together about 12 high quality growers in the region which produces exclusively Appellation Controlled Coffee. This is real innovation and models the wine industry. I stayed with one of his buying group Judge Fernandez who sits on the bench in Belo Horizonte from Monday to Thursday and comes up to his beloved coffee farm every weekend. He has invested much of his income in developing his passion. I sampled their fine hospitality and great way of life for a few days. The sophistication of these businesses was not what I expected at all with the farm workers, while not being paid much by our standards, all having a good quality of life and very happy. They were largely self sufficient like part of a large family and the priority of all the owners that I met were their workers.
My thanks to these wonderful people who were so hospitable and warm and will be welcomed to these islands in the future hopefully to be able to taste lots of their own fabulous coffee.

Footnote
The 6th annual Brazil Cup of Excellence auction broke both the country record and the average price per pound record for a coffee auction. With all of the coffees fetching over $3.50 per pound and the average price per pound over $5.00, all 36 winning Brazilian farmers will walk away with huge premiums. The top coffee was sold to Maruyama Coffee a group of small Japanese roasters for $13.65lb.

The second place coffee was purchased by California based Diedrich Coffee and the third place winner went to a European group consisting of UK based Mercanta Coffee Hunters, Cafes El Magnífico of Spain, Cafés Meo of France, Monmouth Coffee from London and The Coffee Company located in Amsterdam.