Brazil – Otavio Reis

Fazenda do Salto is located in Carmo da Cachoeira, Sul de Minas, Brazil, and it’s managed by Otávio Reis, the fifth-generation of a 100-year family legacy. Spanning 800 hectares at 1,150 meters above sea level, the farm grow a diverse array of varieties, including Yellow Catucai, Catuai, Bourbon, Robi, Icatu, Mundo Novo, Arara, and Topazio. Otavio employs production techniques tailored to specific plots, terroir, and variety. With picturesque rolling meadows of coffee, it embodies the classic Brazilian coffee farm.

Manga Larga Series

In the 2019 harvest in collaboration with Flavio Reis and the his team at Rancho Grande, Cocatrel Direct and ourselves at Falcon began some experimental processing methods to start to test the boundaries of what was possible for the coffees from this farm. Initially Cocatrel Direct had had some very good results from using the new static boxes to help slow fermentation and drying down to create profiles not commonly associated with these style of coffees. Building of their initial work and adding another layer of pre anaerobic fermentation before drying in the static boxes we have managed to produce some coffees that we feel live up to the process in cup quality. This range of coffees is named after a breed of horse ‘Manga Larga’ known form this region for its high quality and special attributes that are part of the history and story at Rancho Grande.

Once the coffee has been mechanically harvested it is then separated using density which separates the levels of ripeness. The boia ripe cherry) and boian (slightly over ripe) are then chosen to be put into the static drying boxes. These are 1 m deep boxes with capacity for 15000 litre volume of cherry which equates to 25-30 bags of green coffee. The boxes have a vented grill at the bottom to allow for air to be circulated from below up through the drying coffee. The coffee is slowly dried in this lot for 11 days at a temperature of 35 degrees until 11.6% moisture in cherry. The coffee is then left to rest for 26 days and stabilise losing a little more moisture to below 11% before it is then milled. This method has allowed the production of more fruity and prominent profiles from the usual profile we associate with Brazil natural coffee.