Project AAA - Natural Acaiá - Manual picking

This coffee comes from a farm I rent with two friends, Augusto and Ademilson. The farm is called Sítio Quilombo and e the project is AAA because all our names start with the letter A but it has nothing to do with the Nespresso AAA. Maybe we need a better name... We rent a 9 hectares farm together and each of us has 3 hectares. The altitude is pretty high, ranging from 1400 to 1450m. My part has 2 varieties: Acaiá, like in this lot, and a little bit of Bourbon. My best coffees come from this plot!

I like the Acaiá because it tastes good in the cup and the screen size is big too. Acaiá is a lineage from the Mundo Novo variety that needs a lot of care but yields well. ‘Round here we call it the “dutch belted cow of coffee”. I struggled with the variety in the beginning because the wind is strong at the AAA plot. BUt now the Acaiá and I understand each other.

There is no precise recipe to produce the best coffee, but there is a way. As we say it in Brazil, “tem um jeitinho”. This is not to say we don’t follow protocol but rather that the raw material we work with always changes. Same with the weather, the air humidity… That is why producers need to learn to “talk” to the coffee and to be flexible, adapting to the external conditions we can’t control. You also have to learn the protocol to be able to break it. My processing methods are not by the book…

I started working with specialty in 2008. It was the first time I got a coffee graded. It scored 80 points. I have learned a lot since then. Augusto and I banter that specialty is like a videogame. You move from level to level. When you are a beginner you follow the rules: pick, sort, wash and start drying on the same day. Spread the coffee in thin layers on the patio, bean by bean. This helps with consistency and reduces defects. But coffee can be much better than this. When you understand what you can do to improve you move levels. I like this.

I also like helping other producers. I was the president of APAS Coffee for 7 years. I left because I didn’t want to get comfortable. I wanted to expand my farm and invest in quality. Then I joined another cooperative, Coopervass. They needed support in the management but no one wanted to do it. People like to complain and don’t do enough to change things. I joined as a vice president of Coopervass this year and am looking for ways to improve what we do. Some say I look for trouble. I just can’t see things that need improving and do nothing.

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"
Quality comments: Score: 87. Primary notes: Floral, Strawberry, Tropical fruits. Secondary notes: Citrus fruit. Lingering and sweet finish with citric acidity and a round, smooth body.

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 (3.6% below)