Brazil

Santa Rosa Topazio Lot - Brazil

250g

Cup Notes

Biscuit / Butterscotch / Prune / Muscovado / Macadamia suggested for espresso and filter

QUALITY SCORE: 87.00


when we roast

We freshly roast to order all coffees on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (excluding national holidays), and ship the same day! Cut-off time is 11:59pm (UTC+1) of the day before the roast day. *We only ship whole beans*

Details

Producer
Antonio J. F. Rosa
Country
Brazil
Terroir
Chapadas De Minas
Altitude
800 mt
Arabica cultivar
Topazio
Picked in
June 2017
Arrived in
January 2018
Shipped in
Jute + GrainPro
Roast profile by
Rubens Gardelli
Roasted on
Customised solid-drum roaster

THE STORY BEHIND

Fazenda Santa Rosa is located in the city of Berizal in the Jequitinhonha Valley in the Chapada de Minas region. Jequitinhonha Valley is full of waterfalls, caves, coffee and eucalyptus plantations, and cattle ranches. In the past, gold and diamonds from nearby mines flowed through the valley.

Antonio Jose Felix Rosa began the Felix Santa Rosa project in 2002, when he and his wife and two children bought the land where the property is today. During a visit to the north of the Minas Gerais state. During a previous visit to the region Jose Felix saw the land and it was love at first sight.

There was no local structure, roads, or electricity. Jose Felix made many early investments to provide an ecologically sound and socially just enterprise. The goal is to make Santa Rosa farm a model farm in the region. The exact location of the farm was chosen based on factors including the number of solar hours, elevation, and low incidence of diseases, which reduces the use of pesticides.

This is a 100% Topazio single-variety lot, naturally processed and slow dried.

Expect biscuit and butterscotch notes in abundance, accompained by flavours of macadamia nut, prune and a muscovado sugar sweetness.

THE VARIETY

Topázio (also Topacio) was developed at the Agronomic Institute of Campinas (IAC) in Brazil during the 1960s and 1970s.

Originally obtained from the cross of Mundo Novo and Red Catuaí and then backcrossed again with Catuaí, it is perhaps no surprise that Topázio MG 1190 bears some similarities to Catuaí both morphologically and in the cup. The cultivar is relatively short in stature, like Catuaí and displays excellent reproductive capacity without exhibiting exhaustion after elevated production.

Topázio fruits are yellow, and the cherry maturing process is halfway between Catuaí and Mundo Novo both in time and uniformity.

THE FERMENTATION PROCESS

Dry process seems simple: pick the fruit, lay it out in the sun until it turns from red to brown to near-back, and then hull off off the thick, dried outer layer in one step to reveal the green bean. It is a method suited to arid regions, where the sun and heat can dry the seed inside the intact fruit skin.

It's often referred to as "natural coffee" because of its simplicity, and because the fruit remains intact and undisturbed, a bit like drying grapes into raisins. Since it requires minimal investment, the dry process method is a default to create cheap commodity-grade coffee in areas that have the right climate capable of drying the fruit and seed. 

But it’s a fail in humid or wet regions. If the drying isn't progressing fast enough, the fruit degrades, rots or molds. 

Dry-processed coffees can also be wildly inconsistent. If you want a cleanly-fruited, sweet, intense cup, dry process (DP) takes more hand labor than the wet process. Even the most careful pickers will take green unripe or semi-ripe coffee off the branch as they pick red, ripe cherry. If these are not removed in the first days of drying, the green turns to brown that is hard to distinguish from the ripe fruit.