F & E Coffee: Brazil, Fazenda Corrego Bonito, Natural

Situated on the border of Sul De Minas and the Cerrado sits the mountainous region of Illicnea with farms rising from 1100 – 1320 masl before the land falls away into the expanse of the cerrado. The area is made up of 6 communties. This beautiful area is blessed with a micro climate that provides conditions for producing unique and intriguing coffees. The regions soil is known as cambisolo where the rock is still turning to soil, this places its own unique stress on the plants and the maturation on the cherry. Prior the grower’s here really struggled with the winds that ravaged the crops, through inquisition and help they have put in systems and planted to trees to help minimise the affect of the wind. The region is still relatively new in terms of knowledge about it as coffees were previously sold under the names of other regions until recently. Now these farms are being recognised for the unique coffees they produce in relation to the region & Brazil and they are being brought to the Uk for the first time.

Fazenda Corrego Bonito has been with Jose since 1982 when he retired form being a truck driver to start life as a coffee farmer. He lives on the farm with his son Luis Fernando who came on board 5 years ago to help his father produce specialty grade coffee. The farm has one small house where they live, and they own one tractor that helps with the work on the farm. They are working with Cocatrel Direct to help improve their yield and quality of coffee. During harvest they collect the coffee by hand before leaving it to dry on patio’s in the natural sun for 17 days. Here it is then left to rest before being taken to be milled.