Brazil
Mantiqueira de Minas
Elisangela Aparecida de Sousa da Silva
Sítio Água Limpa
Red Catuai
Natural
August–September
Dark Chocolate, Peach, Amaretto
1175 meters
N/A
60 kg w/ GrainPro
SOLD OUT
Coffee producer Elisangela Aparecida de Sousa da Silva operates Sítio Água Limpa today in the Mantiqueira de Minas region of Brazil, though her history in coffee stretches back to before she had her own property. “My history with coffee started with ‘part coffee’, that is, half part because it was coffee shared with third parties,” she explains. “Over time, we managed to buy a piece of land that was already called the Água Limpa farm.”
In 2013, Elisangela discovered that her coffee was special, motivating her to overcome the difficulties that can come with coffee production. “In the beginning, the biggest challenge was financial, today the challenges are different, with very expensive inputs. Even so, our motivation is to know that we have a differentiated [specialty] coffee.” Today, treatments and crop management at the farm are based on soil analysis and a commitment to the correct fertilization for the plants.
This lot of Red Catuai coffee underwent Natural processing. Coffee cherries were first dried in the drying yard before being finished in a rotary dryer. Catuai was made by the Instituto Agronomico (IAC) of Sao Paulo State in Campinas, Brazil by crossing Mundo Novo and Caturra varieties. Catuai coffees are cultivated widely across Brazil, and are known for their high productivity potential.
This coffee was one of the top 6 entries in the Natural and Pulped Natural category of a competition held by AMECAFÉ Mantiqueira (The Association of Coffee Women Entrepreneurs in Serra da Mantiqueira) in October 2021. The association was founded in 2017 and now includes 130 producers, providing professional development and other events for women producers in the region.
Located on the northern side of the Serra da Mantiqueira mountain range in the southern part of the state of Minas Gerais, the Mantiqueira de Minas region is a demarcated area of 25 municipalities. It is officially recognized as an Indication of Origin for its tradition and worldwide reputation of producing coffees with unique sensory profiles.
Most producers in the region are smallholders who operate family farms. The region is differentiated by the unique terrain and the resulting characteristics that the terroir leads to in the cup. Coffees from Mantiqueira de Minas reflect both the place itself and the committed work of its producers. Mantiqueira includes more than 8,200 producers, 82% of whom are smallholders, and 56,000 hectares of mountain land planted with coffee. Most harvesting is still completed manually, and this and other practices keep the regional cultural heritage of coffee farming alive while at the same time pursuing new flavors.
