Coffee Talk Magazine

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Brazil

Brazil

Alternative Sweeteners

Rocky Rhodes

Echo Coffee Prole

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August 2011

Vol. XXIV No. 8

H N C T , L L C

2 5 5 2 5 7 7 t h A v e S W

V a s h o n , W A 9 8 0 7 0

C h a n g e S e r v i c e R e q u e s t e d P R S R T S T D

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P A I D

P e r m i t N o . 1 7 8

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Landing in Saõ Paulo aer the 9 hour ight rom the States, I didn’t know what to expect. Actually,in all my years in coee, I have never been to Brazil. My assumption was that the world o coee inBrazil could not be that signicantly dierent rom coee grown in other parts o the world.

It is air to say that I came to Brazil with a number o prejudices about the quality o the coees producedthere and, i others were being honest, they would admit this too. When I was rst starting out in cup-ping, some o the more experienced cuppers dismissed any Brazilians that were on the table with “ oh, it’sa Brazilian, its an ‘80’.” With hindsight, I realize that this is remarkably unair and totally against the ethico the ‘Q’ but nonetheless, there it is. In truth, when I have participated in blind cuppings, such as theRainorest Alliance competition, the Brazilians oen scored 85’s or higher.

Ten there is that whole “Brazilian” thing. Vast arms; machine harvesting; rows o trees laid out by satellite; 25% o the total world production o coee; Corporate Agro-business detachment; it seemedcontrary to a world that I would perceive as producing coees o high quality.

o counteract these prejudices was our riend and world-renowned key gure in the global coee world –

Edgard Bressani, the newly appointed CEO o O’Coee Brazilian Estates, the cornerstone o Octavio Caéthat recently purchased Dallis Coee, the abled specialty coee company ounded in 1913 and based inNew York City. It seemed highly unlikely that Bressani would settle or second-rate coee.

So, as you might imagine, I jumped at the chance to travel to Brazil at the invitation o Dallis Coee, andtheir parent company Octavio.

Octavio Caé, a principally agricultural based company in Brazil owns Fazenda Nossa Sehora Aparecidalocated in Pedregulho, Saõ Paulo. 6000 acres o what was once vast single estate rom the coee barondays, Octavio has 1200 acres under cultivation or coee and the remainder is given over to livestock,timber, and other crops.

Coee was introduced in Brazil by Francisco de Mello Palheta in 1727 rom Cayenne, French Guiana.Legend has it that Francisco de Mello had an aair with the wie o the Governor o French Guiana, per-suading her to gi him a simple coee plant. Tis was a simple gi o enormous international political

import. Te Spanish and the French careully kept the ability to produce coee in the New World romthe Portuguese, thus protecting an enormous source o wealth.

Te Portuguese were cut out o the lucrative European market or coee cheaply imported rom SouthAmerica and had to sit by and watch the Spanish monarchy become increasingly wealthy politically andmilitarily. Once coee was smuggled into Brazil, the cartel was broken. Brazil took to coee like a duck to water. Te rich volcanic soil o the high altitude inland plains, the humid sub-tropical weather, and theproximity to numerous deep-water harbors led to the explosive expansion o coee in Brazil. Coee inthe 18th and 19th centuries was the leading product o Brazil and the primary source o wealth. Coeeueled the industrial revolution in Saõ Paulo and is responsible or that city becoming the 7th largest inthe world.

oday, Brazil is the world's largest coee producer and is a signicant player in the specialty coeeindustry. Bourbon, ypica, Caturra, and Mundo Novo coee varietals are grown in the states o Paraná,Espirito Santos, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Bahia.

What I ound at Octavio was an extraordinary commitment to quality and consistency at all levels o theorganization. Tis commitment is not ounded on modern Quality Control Management systems butinstead on the proound vision and impact o Octavio Quércia who in the 1940’s dreamed o producinghigh quality coee. Now in the h generation as a coee cultivating amily, the impact o seventy yearso laser tight ocus on quality in all things shows in the care and maintenance o old buildings, cleanlinessin the mill, near pristine conditions in the roastery, to the planning and layout o the patios, and theircommitment to sel-sufciency and sustainability.

by Miles Small

Brazil

continued on page 16



Dispelling one o my assumptions – that mechanical harvesting o coee isnot as good, or as quality ocused, as picking by hand – Bressani demon-strated that by changing the tension on the beaters and moving the level o

the beaters so that dierent parts o the trees are harvested at dierenttimes. Te incidence o strippingthe trees and taking toomany unripe cher-ries in a pass isdramatically reduced, to thepoint that themachineshave

become aseective

as hand picking. Also, the trees are pruned to betapered, wider at the bottom than at the top so thatthe cherries on the top ripen earlier.

Te design o the planting rows is done to maximizethe efciency o the gigantic pickers as well as tooptimize airow, moisture, soil retention, and sun-light so that a more consistent ripening schedule canbe achieved. Several passes are made by the machinesduring the picking season to gather the ripening ruitusing the gentler picking style o the modied Jacto pickers.At the end o season, the remaining ruit is handpicked, strip-ping by hand.

Te culture o Fazenda Nossa Senhora Aparecida is ar removed rom thecold Agro-business environment I expected. Tis is a amily operation, albeita huge enterprise.

One example o this is Chapadao, a small village that until recently was inruins and abandoned but now has been purchased by the Quércia amily andlovingly restored. Tis town once was the center o the original Coee Baron’soperation having a train station to send his coee to Saõ Paulo and receivethe thousands o Italian immigrants as well as other nationalities coming towork the coee elds in Saõ Paulo, Minas Gerais, and on into Brazil. (Tisrailway had only 11 stops and was built by the government to support the 11coee growers who controlled this vast area) Tese immigrates replaced theslavery system that persisted into the late 1800’s. (Brazil was the last country to abolish slavery, primarily because o coee and the power o the shockingly wealthy Coee Barons.

o this rontier train station came a young poor Italian immigrant womanwho would become Octavio Quércia’s grandmother. Te house in whichVincente Quércia , Octavio’s ather, was born to lowly conditions was in this

village. oday this village is a reminder to the Quércia amily o their humblebeginnings and their goodortune.

Tis connection to amily is alsoreected in the way the amily embraces their employees.Trough high wages, benets,opportunities to have smallamily arms subsidized by theamily, education benets andsupport o the local town, the

workers o the arms are surpris-ingly prosperous.

o the amily, coee is everything and reected in their logo (the “O” isa bean), their caé in Saõ Paulo (which looks like a picker’s basket, is sur-rounded by coee trees, is lled with coee inormation, and rom the airis the shape o a bean), their corporate headquarters building (more o the same), to the little village o Chapadao.

Te arm has a tim-bering operation o

Eucalyptus treesthat replenishes

every sevenyears throughsystematic

harvesting.Tis wood is used to re their dryers in the mill. Tearm produces naturals and pulped naturals, as wellas some wet milling. In order to conserve water andenergy, centriuges are used to extract much o thewater used in milling and then recovered back intothe wet mill.

But the proo ultimately is in the cupping. Octavio andDallis have hit a homerun with their almost obsessive

ocus on quality through agricultural and processingprac-

tices. Wecupped a

wide array o

products rom thearm as well as premiumproducts rom otherarms. Te Octavio/DallisBrazilians, both naturaland pulped natural werear superior, rating easily into the mid to higheighties to ninety.

Octavio does indeedachieve the 8 elements o quality that are the ocuso the International CoeeOrganization.

Congratulations toO’Coee, Octavio Caé,and Dallis Coee as wellas thank you to EdgardBressani, John Moore –VP o Sales and Marketingor Dallis Coee, andMarcelo Cresente – CEOo Dallis Coee.

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Brazilcontinued from page 7

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August 2011

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