It has been some time since I did a coffee post, and I have so many amazing new coffee's to share. But there is so many things happening right now with me, people visiting every week looking to purchase roasters like mine, trying to clear out the Warehouse a bit to make room for my new 30kg monster roaster, the long term weekend project to start painting the warehouse so it looks a little less tatty.
Anyway this coffee I have to share, because it's a story that starts in June 2019 when I visited Brazil for 10 days and toured several coffee plantations, meeting the farmers seeing the coffee plants growing and watching the harvested coffee cherries being processed. It was an amazing experience and I was eager to purchase green coffee from a number of the plantations, but especially from Fazenda do Lobo a family run coffee plantation with husband and wife working with their two sons - a family business thriving during difficult times for coffee growers because they are working hard to enhance their coffee cup quality - gaining speciality grades for the extra post harvest processing that gives them a good price for their crop.
Here I am with the father and plantation owner Marcos, followed by one of the Minasul Co-operative staff, then the son from the plantation and another two Minasul staff. We toured the plantation throughout the afternoon, saw the processing during the evening and then were hosted with a BBQ in the farm house - a wide range of different meats and cheeses with bread, chilled beers and also cachaça a spirit made from Sugar Cane which is a major crop in Brazil - it was good but I'm quite sure that the farm tractors could also run on it!
I was really impressed by this plantation, so many things made it stand out. From the wife roaring up to the farm house half way through our visit - on a Trail Bike! Having been to the furthest reaches of the plantation to check on crops and the workers, to the branded tops all the workers wore - and they were really happy and had an obvious close relationship with the owners. It really showed a dedication to not just growing and processing a crop, but creating something they were proud of - putting in extra work to tend the crops, the coffee plants all looked so healthy and well treated, and between them was so neat - no weeds present.
With commodity coffee prices so low it's easy for plantations to cut corners and just aim for volume - but it is obvious Fazenda do Lobo are doing the exact opposite, aiming for quality improving their crops, investing in new processing techniques and ensuring their workers are happy and so treat the crop better - all enhancing the coffee quality and cup score.
And it all starts with these beautiful Yellow coffee cherries - and anyone used to seeing my previous coffee posts will know the coffee cherries go from green to red normally. But on this plantation they grow Yellow Bourbon - and the ripe cherries are yellow! There are literally thousands of varieties of the coffee plant, they vary throughout the growing regions and each variety prefers a different climate - some grow better in drier regions, others prefer much more rain. The yellow cherries are not really better tasting then the red - just different and with their own unique flavour.
The farmland is flat enough they can use mechanical picking, the coffee trees are grown in regimental lines so the machine can run past them, and also a tractor and trailer to collect the harvest. The machine above will literally drive either side of the trees - the height of it and also the number of agitating sticks and position of them can be changed. Literally the sticks shake the tree branches the ripe cherries fall and are collected and then deposited via an auger into a trailer on the next row. The process does not damage the trees, and the adjustments allow precise harvest - if only the top half of the tree is ready they can remove the lower agitators to ensure no unripe cherries fall.
Here we see the harvester in action, you can now see the coffee tree's are passing through the middle of the machine to be shaken so the ripe cherries fall.
And on the next row, the tractor and trailer collecting the harvested coffee cherries. Experiencing this first hand is incredible, especially for me as the final step in the coffee chain where I will roast the coffee and supply it to my customers locally.
After harvest, the coffee cherries are processed back at the farm house in different way - here the pulped cherries are laid out on large drying patios.
And here a different variation of the process.
And they have invested in new technology, these drying tanks speed up the drying process and also give a more uniform taste to the coffee.
They also utilise washed and pulped processing - each technique will give a different quality and cup score to the crop.
The puplped process has fresh cherries put in and run through a series of drums and conveyors, which remove the coffee beans from the cherries and send the beans one way for drying on beds while the skin cherry pulp is sent another way to trailors to be used as fertiliser back on the coffee plantation.
After visiting Fazenda do Lobo I was absolutely sure I had to purchase some of their crop, and it has taken some time from June 2019 arranging the final deal via the co-operative Minasul to receiving 180kg of their Yellow Bourbon Natural Process a few weeks ago, I have brought in 180kg and there is around the same again available in the UK so I can still order more if it sells really well. I will definitely be stocking their crop from this year as well.
The very first roast of this excellent coffee dropped to cool, it cups really high unto SCA 86 and is full of fruit flavours, milk chocolate and tasty grape notes - perfect for brewing with Hario drip or Aeropress.
You can purchase this Brazillian Yellow Bourbon coffee roasted from my White Rose Coffee Roasters online store, you can purchase it as green coffee to roast yourself from my Pennine Tea and Coffee Ltd and you can purchase a coffee roaster like mine from Toper Coffee Roasters UK - you remember I said I was really busy! Plus I run a Witness Server for our Steem Blockchain and support as many post as I can every week.
All photos are my own, taken during June 2019 while I visited this plantation in Brazil
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