We are extremely excited to introduce a new offering from yet another one of Brazil's coffee regions, Paraná. This region has historically been a strong producer of Brazilian coffee but during the late 20th century, annual hard frosts kept the production low. Today, Paraná has not had extreme frosts for 5 years and has been experiencing an increase in overall production. This coffee, a Yellow Catuai, is from Fazenda Santa Barbara, a well-established farm with a rich history in Brazilian coffee. The farmland itself was colonized in the beginning of the 19th century by the American company Leon & Isreal. In 1963 the movie Instant Love was filmed here and Mr. Nelson Rockefeller visited in 1947. Today, Fazenda Santa Barbara is owned by the Saldanha Rodrigues family, and has been since 2004. After acquiring the farm, the Saldanha Rodrigues family has implemented a new cycle of management focusing on sustainability for specialty coffee production. The farm spans a total of 1,467 hectares of which only 250 are planted in coffee. Coffee is harvested mechanically followed by a light sorting process in which the ripest cherries are set aside for specialty lots such as this one. For this lot, the coffee was pre-dried on a patio for 4 days then moved to natural mechanical dryers where 12-hour drying cycles were performed (coffee was dried for 12 hours then rested for 12 hours and repeated until it reached a moisture content of 10.5% ). For more information on Brazilian coffee, visit our Brazil origin page.
