Alvaro Coli, Sitio Da Torre

Our second micro-lot from that incredible trip to the Serra de Mantiqueira region of Brazil last year with DR Wakefield and the visit to Sitio Da Torre hosted by Alvaro Antônio Pereira Coli and his family was something quite special. Our guide, Baba from COCARIVE, had built our expectations about the warm welcome, incredible food and Alvaro’s ‘secret sauce’ that we were likely to receive. That experience alone would have been enough to concrete their coffee on our offer list but then of course it also shone on the cupping table. One of our top picks amongst all the lots we cupped during that visit.

The Serra de Mantiqueira stretch across São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro states. Located in the Minas Gerais state, the Mantiqueria de Minas area was the first to get a geographical indication in the Brazilian coffee industry (supported and developed by BSCA). This fresh approach, akin to ‘terroir’ in the wine industry, is redefining how people view specialty coffee from Brazil with 25 counties in the region and 7,800 producers, of which 89% are smallholders. The area comprises 69,500 hectares and altitude ranges from 900 to 1,500 masl, with a predominance of yellow varieties over the more typical red. All coffees are minimum 84 SCA points as part of the denomination and many enter the late harvest Cup of Excellence in Brazil.

Da Torre is another award winning farm with a huge trophy cabinet and awards wall and the farm itself within the stunning Mantqueira mountain range. Alvaro’s son Gustav explained the layout of the farm, varieties and processing methods used, highlighting the fact that between 60 and 70% of the farm is planted with yellow varieties. As well as their favourite Yellow Bourbon, they have Geisha, Caturra, Catuai, Obata and a number of experimental varieties that they’re testing alongside a research institute. Another beautiful farm with coffees spread across different altitudes, and different facing slopes. This was something I’d not fully appreciated before, with sun-facing and contra-facing slopes having very different maturation rates and therefore cup profiles. Typically sun-facing slopes would have faster ripening and less nuanced cups, contra-facing slower ripening more complex cups.

This particular lot of Yellow Bourbon (years of testing and and analyses by COCARIVE showed that yellow varieties score higher in this region), is pulped then taken to the drying patios. Typically Pulped Naturals (PN) have cleaner profiles with less body than their Natural counterparts and in the case of these high altitude coffees from Mantiqueira it results in a clean crisp acidity that definitely flies against the norm of the stereotypical creamy nutty Brazils.

One of the interesting aspects of these COCARIVE micro-lots imported by D R Wakefield is the level of detail provided. Each 30Kg box contains 2 x 15Kg Vac-Pac's to maintain freshness and shelf life and on the outside is a small QR code. Scanning it links to a very detailed document of the coffee specifics including sensory analysis and cup score.