Brazil Milky Heaven - Milk Based & Espresso

Region: Minas Gerais

Process: Natural

Variety: Bourbon, Catuai

Altitude: 900-1400 masl

SCA score: 85

Tasting Notes: Nutty, milk chocolate, roasted cacao nibs

SanCoffee is a producer group based in Santo Antonio de Amparo in southern Minas Gerais, Brazil. It comprises over 20 fazendas (estates), many of whom are well known in their own right, often placing in the Brazil Cup of Excellence. Every coffee buyer's dream is a producer group that can provide consistently large volumes of coffee alongside some innovative and award-winning smaller lots!

SanCoffee has a centralised lab, warehouse and dry mill, and a dedicated team of Q Graders who manage the quality for all the member estates. Working as a group through the central lab enables estates to share and gain from the collective's many years of combined experience. More so, having total control of their warehouse and dry mill enables complete traceability and precise milling specifications for customers. The specialty-graded coffee enters the warehouse, where samples are kept, and profiles noted. There are shelves on a giant wall in the cupping lab where each estate's name is listed and descriptions of the various coffees they offer. From here, companies like us work with the lab and choose the coffees which best fulfil the taste profiles we are looking for.

Technology and agronomy have become vital in maintaining quality as these estates are run like tiny factories. You'll find some of the team working closely with the IAC (Instituto Agriconomico de Campinas), a coffee research institute in Brazil. Different coffee varieties not yet used commercially are grown and evaluated in a meticulously kept nursery. SanCoffee has also moved to store all their coffee in giant polypropylene bags. One of these large bags can house about 60 standard jute bags. The benefits of this are two-fold: it reduces the storage space needed. It is made of much better material for storing coffee – the polypropylene bags are firmly woven together, giving just a bit of breathability.

Beyond the benefits already listed, SanCoffee, as a collaborative export partnership, has managed to mitigate the influence of a dangerously low market price. Generally, premiums to growers are 30-50% higher than both the local and C price market rates. SanCoffee and its members continue to mobilise and collaborate to strengthen the ability of its members to sell at above local market rates, in turn championing economic sustainability.