Custos de financiamento vigoram até que o café seja liberado.
A história do café
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)
