On Filter: Grape Jelly, Cola, Pineapple Juice, Delicate Body

On Espresso: Nectarine, Floral

This is our first purchase for Brazil Natural Fermentation. We cupped this delicate coffee more than 5 times. We find this coffee really interesting and it has a lot of potential in your cup.

On crust, the wet aroma lurks in tonnes of floral notes. When we cupped this coffee, on dry grounds, it smells of roasted walnuts but it fades away after brew and floral notes take over.  This coffee is unlike Ethiopia or Colombian coffee you have tried. This coffee tastes like Bolivia, Costa Rican, floral notes with a delicate body. If you have tried all of Brazil, try this. We were choosing among 4 different types of varietals and this Tropiza stands out the most and value for money.

Inacio first arrived in Minas Gerais in 1976 with the dream of producing great coffee via sustainable and innovative practices. After acquiring his own farm in Cerrado Mineiro in 1984, Rio Brilhante has grown to become one of the biggest farms in the region, as well as one of the largest in the country; spanning over 2000 hectares. Since Inacio planted those first trees over 30 years ago, he has continued to strive for excellence within the speciality industry, mainly via his use of rigorous quality control methods.

Made up of 55 separate counties, the region of Cerrado Mineiro can be found to the east of Minas Gerais, one of the primary coffee-growing regions of Brazil. Famed for its quality coffee production, the region ranges from 1,000 to 1,250 metres above sea level, providing ideal conditions for coffee production due to the perfect balance of wet and dry seasons. Cerrado alone is estimated to produce as much as 12.5% of Brazil’s total coffee output and has now received ‘Origin status’, meaning only coffee from ‘Cerrado’ can be called ‘Cerrado’; similar to Champagne in France. This exceptional quality is noted to result from a combination of climate, soil, terrain and the general ‘know-how’ of its people, something Inacio is proud to be a part of.

Rio Brilhante takes part in a number of social projects; their main being ‘Seeds of Change’. ‘Seeds of Change’ is a program focused on helping Rio Brilhante staff to learn skills such as reading, writing and calculating in everyday life. The driving force behind this scheme is that staff are constantly being faced with new challenges, both at work and home, in our modern world. ‘Seeds of Change’ helps to give staff the tools they need, to be able to thrive under such circumstances. Members of staff who take part receive a professional qualification, to help further their career. Rio Brilhante also offers this project to staff member’s relatives, highlighting the importance of the family as one of their core values. As well as Seeds of Change, other education initiatives such as ‘Escolinha Tia Edna’, a disability school for 85 pupils aged 2-6, and ‘Ponto do Livro’, a project aimed at opening local open-air libraries, are also funded by Rio Brilhante.