Notes : Plum, Hazelnut, Malt, Biscuit, Dense body

We brought in this coffee in March 2023 to delight our regulars with plums, a heavy body in their daily coffee, but bears no sour or unpleasant aftertaste. Goodness is guaranteed in your daily cup.

The cool, green hills of Sul de Minas provide ideal conditions for coffee growing and produce some of Brazil’s finest beans. The region is known locally as ‘Vertentes’, because it forms a border between two very important basins in Brazil: the Grande River Basin (which runs to the south) and the São Francisco River Basin (which runs to the northeast).

It is here that we find Campo Alegre (Happy Field), one of the three production plots, or sub-farms, of Fazenda Samambaia. Currently, Samambaia is divided into 3 different production areas: Campo Alegre, Samambaia and Condomínio. All are situated in the same microregion and the distances between them are around 15 km each.

Campo Alegre occupies some of the higher points of Samambaia, lying between 950 and 1,150 metres above sea level. Coffee varieties planted on the plot include: Yellow Bourbon, Catiguá, Acaiá, Mundo Novo, Yellow Catucaí, Yellow and Red Catuaí, Topázio, Icatú, Rubi and Arara. Campo Alegre is 100% Catucaí, using the Pulped natural method for processing. There is also a sizeable varietal garden on Campo Alegre where the farm grows 19 different Bourbon varieties. This garden is a project that has been undertaken in partnership with a well-known agricultural research institute in Brazil. In the Samambaia plot, a parallel project has established an additional 54 varieties coming from all parts of the world.

Henrique Dias Cambraia, owner of Fazenda Samambaia, attributes the success of his farm and of Campo Alegre in particular to a combination of various factors, such as the farm’s geographic location, competent technical management of the plantations with individualized phytosanitary controls of the planting fields, constant training based on total quality control programs, and most importantly, the involvement of the whole team that works on the farm.

Henrique is committed not only to producing high quality coffee, but to farming in a way that is socially responsible and environmentally sustainable. He is happy to say that, during his absence from the farm between March 2000 and July 2001 – when he was pursuing a Masters in International Business at Phoenix, Arizona – his employees demonstrated consistent capabilities in maintaining the Samambaia routines.

The farms of the Dias Cambraia family have been receiving technical assistance from Agronomist Josué Pereira de Figueiredo, Ph.D. for over ten years. Dr. Figueiredo was the technical coordinator of Brazilian Coffee Institute and was also a Cup of Excellence finalist in 2001 and 2015. Henrique regularly attends events organized by the Association of the Coffee Producers of Southern Minas Gerais (Sulminas-Café) and other similar bodies, to ensure that the Dias Cambraia farms keep themselves abreast with new technologies and techniques.

Recently, Henrique Dias Cambraia was elected President of Sulminas-Café. Together with other 20 coffee producers of the Santo Antônio do Amparo region, he founded the Santo Antônio Estate Coffee, to build relationships with the specialty coffee market.

Fazenda Samambaia has won many awards for its high quality coffee, including Cup of Excellence.