Brazil Sete Cachoeiras Estate wins first place at SCAA 2008

I wanted to let you all know that the Brazil Sete Cachoeiras Estate – Rainforest Alliance coffee was given an award at the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) this year to recognize their quality among all the Rainforest Alliance Coffee produced.

When I went out for dinner with Renato Farhat Brito and his father Marcel Renato Brito, the owners of this estate, they had mentioned that when they entered this contest, they entered the exact same Lot of coffee we chose to import.

We picked their Passa Natural Processed, sun dried coffee. It has an amazing chocolate almond taste with aromas of walnuts. They mentioned that they didn’t do any special preperation on the coffee they submitted, they simply took some of our Lot and sent it to the SCAA. They were very excited to share their victory with us.

The best part is that next year they are expecting even better tasting coffee!!

They have invested a heavily into their infrastructure for quality control including a drip irrigation system and improved drying beds. Drip irrigation will improve the flowering cycles on their tress, as well as the ripening of the cherries to occur in a more uniformed and consistent matter. This is important in Brazil as they do the majoirty of harvesting by machine (Brazil sorts their harvested coffee by machine after it is picked, not before like other regions).

What willl now happen, is Sete Cachoeiras will do two ripe pickings per harvest (most Brazilians do one), and when this is done, their will be a majority of equally ripe coffee at one time (less green). This happens because all of their trees will get an equal amount of water, at a controled time every year.

We have a lot of information on this farm. The things they do are incredible, and unique to any farm I have seen in any other country. You can read more here.

Congratulations Renato and Marcelo on a job well done. We are very proud of you.

Russ