ABOUT THE COFFEE
Maria Bernardete Jordan Oliveira has always been involved with coffee. She grew up in a family of coffee producers, and received her own plot as an inheritance in 1996, the 15 hectares that would become Fazenda Esmeril. This is a rather small farm in the modern Brazilian landscape, so Maria and her husband initially struggled with a lack of capital to buy machinery, and hire workers. It was here that they found their focus on quality, aiming to increase their income without expanding aggressively, or succumbing to excessive cost cutting and automisation. Maria’s farm is located in the Chapadão de Ferro micro-region, on the slopes of a dormant volcano in the Cerrado Mineiro region. The higher altitude and fertile soils here mean that coffee is of excellent quality, ands often harvested one or two months later than the wider Cerrado region.
This lot is of the Mundo Novo varietal, a natural cross between Bourbon and Typica, discovered in 1943 near São Paulo. It was initially planted near the town of Mundo Novo, now known as Urupês. From here, generations of the plant were selected further and further, leading to the modern varietal being released in 1952. Mundo Novo is known for its high production potential and tall stature, perfect for Brazilian agricultural methods, while maintaining much of the quality potential of its parent varietals. The natural process was used here, allowing a typically sweet and heavy profile to unfold, with notes of dark chocolate and hazelnut joined by sweet cherry in the cup.
