The most interesting about this coffee was that it tasted just like a fine washed Africa, floral and tea-like, elegant and sweet with multi-layered citric acidity of medium intensity and lingering toffee-like aftertaste.
Custos de financiamento vigoram até que o café seja liberado.
A história do café
Sítio Vargem Alegre is located in the town of Cristina in the Mantiqueira de Minas region, South of Minas Gerais. It is owned by my father Sebastião and my mother Hilda, but all the family is involved. My father might look serious, but he is a very open-minded and easy-going man who embraces our participation and welcomes our opinions. My brother Edu and I joined him in 2015, when I was 18 years old and Edu 16. At the time, prices were getting really low and my dad wanted to expand his commercial coffee production to tackle the price issue. My brother and I encouraged him to invest in quality instead.
The view from our farm
He had a point in wanting to stick to commercials. Specialty is a lot more work after all. But with our help, we managed to look after the farm the way it needed. Our farm is quite high with the highest part at 1450m and it can be quite steep. We can’t use mechanical harvesters here. The quality is very good though and it would be a shame not to value it. And when we started in specialty, we couldn’t stop. It was like a fever.
My father at the farm. We take visitors up the hills on our tractor. It's the easiest way to go and it's fun!
I began working at the local cooperative to learn about quality control. Today I am a Q grader and also have the SCA Sensory Skills diploma. I learned a lot about preparing coffee, sampling, QC and processing since 2015. All this knowledge applied to the field has had a great impact on my family. We expanded our farms, patios and improved our post-harvest greatly. Our general quality of living has improved.
Today we have four plots: Vargem Alegre, Tarumã, São Sebastião and Nossa Senhora das Candeias. We keep going higher. Our most recent project is a coffee plantation at 1690m, where no other farmer has dared to go to. It’s so cold our first experience was a disaster. The frost killed everything. BUt now we learned that the plants need to grow under the shade of trees there, protected and not exposed. People call me crazy, but I’m on to something…
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: 87.25. Primary notes: Floral, Citrus fruit, Red berries. Secondary notes of Black tea, Herbal, Rhubarb. Lingering, sweet and toffee-like aftertaste with citric-tartaric, multilayered acidity and tea-like elegant body.
"The most interesting thing about this coffee was that it tasted just like a fine washed African, floral and tea-like, elegant and sweet with multi-layered citric acidity of medium intensity and lingering toffee-like aftertaste." - 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)
