June 2017 Newsletter
They grow an awful lot of coffee in Brazil. Many people know this as sort of a background fact or something that can pop up during pub trivia nights, but most people don't realise just how much coffee an "awful lot" represents. In any given year between a quarter and a third of all the coffee produced worldwide comes from Brazil.
This is only possible because Brazil is a modern agribusiness country and the coffee industry is highly mechanised. Beginning with propagating the seeds and planting the coffee bushes in rows which very much resemble modern vineyards, complete with irrigation and suspension wires, even coffee cherry maturation is controlled by technology.
This allows for the mechanical harvesting, processing and sorting of the ripe coffee cherry. The popular image of lowly paid workers and farmers laboriously picking only ripe cherries simply doesn't apply to most of the coffee produced in Brazil. Instead, huge mechanical harvesters track slowly down kilometre long rows of coffee bushes, taking almost every coffee cherry as they go.
When farm sizes are measured in square kilometres rather than hectares this is realistically the only way to do it. Just as processing the sheer volume of coffee involved requires much use of robotics, mechanical engineering, sensors and computers. The results are stunning...this year's finished crop is estimated at around 3,000,000,000 kg (that's 3 billion kg!) which, for comparison, is about the same tonnage as the wheat produced here.
The downside of all this mechanised production is that the flavour of Brazilian coffees tend to be fairly homogenous, with only minor variations between growing areas and crop years, making it a cheap, mass produced item. To overcome this the Brazil Specialty Coffee Association was formed in 1991, with the goal of identifying and improving the quality (and prices) of Brazilian coffees.
The BSCA introduced competitive cupping competitions followed by auctions of the coffees involved. This was the origin of the Cup of Excellence auction process now supported by many other coffee producing countries. Over the years we've managed to acquire several COE placegetters, although never a Number One.
The competition idea has become widespread in Brazil, to the point where the three major coffee growing regions hold their own contests. Which brings us to this month's special coffee:
Brazil Sao Silvestre
$50.00/kg
The Fazenda Sao Silvestre Yellow Catuai was the winner of the 2016 "Best Coffee of Cerrado" competition. It has a rich front palate with a hint of fruit acid, cacao and vanilla mid palate and a malty finish, all combining with an intensity rarely seen in Brazilian coffees.
This coffee would normally be unavailable or a lot more expensive, but fortunately we have been able to get it as a "Farm Gate" coffee, purchased direct from the farm. The farming family involved, the Andrade Bros., have been growing coffee in Brazil since 1901. They obviously know a bit about it, and have kept up with the innovation needed to survive and prosper.
And finally, a quick note: Monday 12th June 2017 is a public holiday in Victoria, so orders from Friday morning to Monday evening will be shipped Tuesday 13th. For some reason Queen's Birthday and Melbourne Cup Day get the most delayed shipping complaints.
Until next month
Alan
