Past

2nd place: Lot 639/20 Red Catuaí "Passa" - Santa Cecilia complex

Fazenda Santa Cecília
Arabica
Floral
Honey
Candy-like

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Origin
Brazil
Producer
Fazenda Santa Cecília
Variety
Red Catuaí 144
Process type
Natural/Sun Dried
Harvest period
July, 2020 - July, 2020
Algrano's cupping score (SCA)
86.5 points
Updated October, 2020
ID
BR-319-202007
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The coffee story

This lot comes from Paraíso farm within Santa Cecilia complex, one of 3 farm complexes owned by my family and part of Veloso Coffee Agrocomercial Exportadora Ltda. The other two are Santa Rita complex and Palmeira complex. We called them complex because they are clusters of farms of different sizes.

View from our processing facilities


I named this lot after the complex because it is where our rebenefício warehouse, the biggest post-harvest structure and office we have inside this complex. The Paraíso farm is located in the municipality of Carmo do Paranaíba, Cerrado Mineiro, and received its name from a local stream that cuts an enormous aquifer park based at the top of the Serra da Mata da Corda. The aquifer belongs to the Paranaíba River basin.

With its red soil, the farm is 100% irrigated by a drip system with water collection in dams and reservoirs. It has an individual administrative base, small repair workshop and post-harvest structure with washer and pulper, patios, dryers, a milling line and wooden storehouses. The property is also one of the oldest in the region to produce coffee.

History
My family has been involved in coffee since 1975. Back then, my father Pedro Humberto began buying and warehousing coffee to sell. He had been trading beans up to that point. His decision coincided with the two frosts in the Southern state of Paraná, then the biggest producing region in Brazil, that forced growers to sell their land and move to the Cerrado area in Minas Gerais.

My father, Pedro Humberto Veloso

At the time, there were many Japanese families growing coffee in the South and the Japanese government subsidised them in buying land at Cerrado. Because of the frosts, the price of the coffee went up and my father managed to get a really good value for the stock he had. He has always been savvy with business and this was the perfect opportunity. This is how he bought the family’s first farm in 1977. Our company Veloso Coffee, however, was still decades in the future.

Bit by bit my father grew his business by buying farms and expanding his warehouse. He has been very focused on traceability and sustainability from day 1 and our farms were among the first ones in Brazil to become UTZ certified in 2004. It was a big investment that only started paying off (I mean financially) in 2009. We are also very active in our community, supporting orchards in the local school, local football clubs, an old people’s care home and a program of our church for children in need. This year, due to COVID, we also donated a reasonable amount to the local hospital.

Veloso likes to deal directly with roasters. We do business in a serious and responsible way. We want our buyer to know who we are and we don’t always get that if we work with traders. Of course, there are traders who tell everything about us and what we do, but not all. Two years ago I met a dealer who bought from us for many years and, in talking to him, I realized he didn’t even know where we were! For us, communicating our history is a matter of principle. We want our family to be recognized for the work we do and we want our clients to understand how we operate. A clear example of why: transport from Cerrado to the port of Santos (Carmo do Paranaíba - Cerrado to Santos is 771 Km) costs much more than from South of Minas (Varginha - South of Minas to Santos is 389 km), due to the distance. So if our coffee is a bit more expensive, we want people to know why they are paying what they are paying. 

The competition

The competition jury in Brazil: Jack (right), William (centre) and Francisco (left)

*This coffee was scrutinized by 4  certified Q-Graders in 2 countries for the competition process with rigorous sensorial and physical analysis. Differences in cupping scores and notes are due to the use of different roast machines and lab setups. As the selection of the lots and the rankings happened in Brazil, the jury's score was kept as the main quality evaluation on the lot information page. Read the information below for more detail.

Algrano's QC
Q-Grader: Veronika Kečkéšová
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
Roaster: IKAWA 
Total roasting time: 6'50" to 7'
First crack: Around 5¨45", 194 to 196 degrees Celsius
DTR: 65" to 70"
Score: 86.5. Primary notes of Grapefruit, Herbal, Toffee. Secondary notes of Milk chocolate and Mulling spices. Sweet and lingering finish with citric acidity and round, medium-high body.

"Very well balanced with spicy touch, mild citric acidity and round, medium-high body." - Veronika 

Jury’s QC
Q-Grader: Jack Robson, Francisco Lentini Neto and William Batista Mariano
Location: Varginha, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Roaster: Speciatto, Carmomaq
Total roasting time: 8-9 minutes
Drying phase: 4-5 minutes
Maillard phase: 3 minutes
DTR: 50 to 70 seconds
Other comments: Agtron 63-65
Screen size: 16/18 (2% below)

The process

The lot 639/20 comes from the H2 Esqueletado (or Skeleton in English) section. This was the plot’s first production after the skeleton pruning in 2018. We plant our trees in rows in a way that they get exposure to the sunlight evenly during the day. The cherries were very very ripe, almost “passa”, as we call it. And because the flowering had been uniform, maturation was very consistent. We harvested the coffee mechanically in July, when the cherries were practically dried on the tree. There was no need to wash this coffee due to the high percentage of very ripe cherries. After the harvest, the coffee went straight to the patio to be sun-dried for 10 days. It was then rested in coco (inside the dry cherry) for 30 days and then hulled.