Brazil Daterra Sweet Blue – Rainforest Alliance Coffee – Micro Lot

Ok, here we go again…..We keep finding new coffees that keep blowing me away.  Fratello has a new Brazilian coffee, exclusive to us in Canada that you need to try.  Daterra is an extraordinary producer who’s plantations are located in the Cerrado region (State of Minas Gerais) and in the Mogiana region (State of São Paulo).  They were also the first to introduce Rainforest Alliance in Brazil.

 

Daterra’s Sweet Blue gave us sweet chocolate and syrupy orange aromas compliment a thick mouth feel and clean finish.  Balanced flavors of dark chocolate fudge and mild almonds.  Cupping Score: 90.

 

 

 

Daterra is a coffee grower and exporter best known for its innovative research, its respect for the environment, social responsibility and its high quality coffee.  Daterra is by no means a small coffee producer; however, they are very well known for the quality of coffee they produce.  This is evident when looking at a few of their awards:

 

  1. Cup of Excellence finalist in 2001;
  2. Best coffee from Brazil on the cupping for Quality by Rainforest Alliance in 2005 and 2008;
  3. Espresso Blend used by World Barista Champion Troels Poulsen in 2005;
  4. Espresso Blend used by World Barista Champion Klaus Thomsen in 2006;
  5. Sustainable farm model by Illy Cafè in 2008
  6. Four out of the six WBC finalists used Daterra coffee in their blends in 2008.
  7. Daterra has a “Penta Pack®” packaging system (vacuum packaging) patented internationally.  This was used to ship Brazil's Cup of Excellence winner lots in 2006 and 2008.

The Sweet Blue is a Micro Lot from Daterra which produces only 5300 – 7950 lbs of coffee per year.  Sweet Blue is the Mundo Novo varietal.  Their processing methods on this coffee is a pulped natural at the wet mill, 100% sun dried and followed with their Penta System for both packaging and quality control (See bottom of this post for more information on that).

 

 

Daterra's plantations are located at an average altitude of 3,800 ft (1,150 m) under a stable temperature of around 25ºC, which constitutes the perfect environment for Arabica Coffee production.  The plantations are divided into 215 mini- farms and further subdivided into 2.816 blocks called "quadras", each of which is planted with a specific coffee variety.   (more…)