This Brazilian Producer Harvests Some of the World’s Finest Coffee

Specializing in organic coffee, Fazenda Barreiro in Brazil produces some of the world’s finest coffee. “The secret of our harvest is to pick the coffee at its peak ripeness,” says João Paulo Capobianco, the co-owner of Café Lobo Do Serrote and Fazenda Barreiro. Production manager Caique De Mello Domingues explains that the producers are selective with their harvesting, going from plant to plant picking out only the ripe grains. Unripe beans are separated out from the “float,” a.k.a. beans that have started drying on the plant naturally and are further along in the drying process . When unripe beans are not removed from the harvest and are dried and processed with the others, it lowers the quality of the coffee.

After being harvested, the ripe beans and the float are washed and separated from one another before being sent off to dry. “The real secret of all the coffee is how you dry it,” Capobianco says. Fazenda Barreiro uses a unique natural fermentation process to dry their coffee. The fermentation, done mostly by the yeasts already present in the coffee beans, releases flavors from the coffee that a normal drying process would not. Fazenda Barreiro’s process is meticulous. The temperature of the fermented coffee is checked every 15 minutes and adjusted as needed.

After the coffee beans are dried, they are sent through a machine that removes the husks, which are then used as fertilizer to help produce new beans. The hulled beans are sorted by by density and grain and a sample of each type of coffee is sent to a be tested by a roast master to be graded. While most coffee sold on the market receives a score of around 70 points, Fazenda Barreiro’s coffee will typically receive at least 84.

Watch the latest episode of Vendors to learn how Fazenda Barreiro harvests, sorts, processes, and roasts some of the world’s best coffee.