Fazenda Serra das Tres Barras

Our first micro-lot from that incredible trip to the Serra de Mantiqueira region of Brazil last year. Fazenda Serra das Tres Barras belongs to producer José Wagner Ribeiro Junqueira, who farms the land with his three sons (Kleber, Ralph and Herbert de Castro Junqueira), and his wife Margarida Maria de Castro Junqueira. The family has a cultivated area of 160 hectares of coffee, of several varieties, spread over six properties belonging to the group, which has the renowned “Fazenda Serra das Três Barras” as its headquarters, where all the coffees produced are processed and prepared, with an annual production of around 3,500 processed bags.

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.

The family's coffee trees are grown on fertile land, with variable altitudes between 1100 and 1450 metres, typical in the Serra da Mantiqueira region. José Wagner is committed to rigorously preserving the areas of native forests and the many springs existing on their properties. The lots of coffee produced get the Seal of Guarantee of Origin and Quality - Mantiqueira de Minas - DO. The coffees are manually harvested and whilst doing so cloths are placed on the ground under the trees to catch any fallen cherries to avoid them making contact with the ground.

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. We've linked the document to the image below if you want to see this impressive level of detail for yourself.