Emilio and his wife Rosana bought 50 hectares of land in Conceição das Pedras, Sul de Minas, in 2013. They didn’t have a lot of resources, but the farmer who owned the land offered them good terms – they could put their house and cars as a security deposit, and pay off the farm over three year
The farm was already planted with Sarchimor, and their first harvest was good. They earned enough to make their first payment on the land, and the future looked bright. Alas the following harvest was disastrous, both volumes and quality were way down, and they didn’t earn enough to make the repayment on their loan. They lost their house and cars, and returned all but 16 hectares to the original owner
Starting from zero, the couple took a bold decision. They tore out the Sarchimor trees and planted Yellow Bourbon. They hoped this variety would take well to their soil, and deliver the quality they needed to earn a decent price for their coffee. Emilio’s father runs a coffee nursery and he remembered selling some seedlings thirty years ago to another farmer, so he contacted his customer from so many years ago, and sourced some seedlings. The following years were tough for Emilio and Rosana. Together with their three kids, they were renting a home, and working to bring in some income while they waited for their Yellow Bourbon trees to grow. They even picked coffee for other farmers in these years. Their first major harvest was in 2017, and a neighbour convinced a reluctant Emilio to take a sample to Cafebras, an exporter with a specialty program. Emilio was busy, and he didn’t believe this first crop would yield much by way of quality, but he found the time and made it to the Cafebras office to drop off a sample
Every year Cafebras run a quality competition. All lots that are scored 84 and above by their quality control team are entered into a special cupping, and five eminent cuppers from Brazil are invited to judge the competition. In 2017, Emilio’s was the top lot, with a score of 90.25! Natalia Brito, the manager of the specialty program at Cafebras invited the top three place winners to her office one day, on a pretense of meeting some buyers of their coffee. The three farmers arrived to her office to see two hampers with sweets and chocolates, the prizes for the second and third place winners. Emilio eyed the hampers, thinking how much Rosana would like one. Then Natalia announced the real reason she invited the farmers, that they were the top three producers in the specialty competition that year. Alas when Natalia announced that Emilio was the winner, he was somewhat disappointed. The other farmers received the hampers, all he got was a piece of paper promising a trip to Sweden and Norway to meet roasters who purchased his coffee. He thought "that will never happen." Planting Yellow Bourbon has been transformative for Emilio and Rosana. They have begun building a new home and now live in a small part of it while they finish construction. Meeting roasters has also been a revelation. “We never realised how much roasters want to know about our farm, it’s altitude and size, the varieties and drying,” Emilio said

Picking

Emilio is picking his cherries by hand (that is not common practice in Brazil) and it remarkably improve the quality of coffe

Processing

Emilio’s coffees are Natural, meaning the cherries are dried whole. He has just this year (2019) started doing some cherry fermentation, allowing the cherry some hours after being picked to ferment before being dried. Normally this process gives you the perception of a sweeter coffee, this is because through fermentation microbes create compounds called esters that are absorbed by the seed. These esters survive the roasting process and are precursors to aromas that are created in the caramelization process of roasting, this makes the coffee seem sweeter

Drying

Drying on a raised beds