Uncommon Grounds for Specialization: Brazil's Coffee Renaissance
by Mark Pendergrast
Portinari Project Coffee by Candido Portinari
Brazilian growers are understandably irritated with all the attention paid to "bird-friendly" shade-grown coffee. Very little of Brazil's coffee is grown under shade trees, since the its greater distance from the equator means that it does not need protection against over-exposure to the sun's rays. Many Brazilian farmers are indeed helpful to birds by maintaining natural forest reserves on their lands. Since the demise of the International Coffee Agreement in 1989, the Brazilians have been fighting to improve their coffee and their image.
Coffee cultivation has moved steadily north to avoid the devastating frosts of Paranŕ, with increased plantings on the high savannas (cerrados) - made possible by massive applications of fertilizer to improve the poor soils, along with irrigation.
Teaming with American coffee specialty pioneer George Howell (in a project launched by the International Coffee Organization, funded and managed by the International Trade Center of the United Nations), Marcelo Vieira of the Brazilian Specialty Coffee Association has worked assiduously to improve the quality as well as the image of the best Brazilian beans. The pair got off to a frustrating start in 1998. "Finding high quality Brazils each year in a haystack of millions of bags is costly, and results are often partial at best," Howell wrote. Even when they sent their finest samples to American importers and roasters, "responses were difficult to obtain and ultimately lukewarm." In 1999, the BSCA initiated the Model Farms Program to attract small and medium-sized farmers with free advice and the lure of higher prices for their harvest. In appropriate areas, they also encouraged a new form of processing called "pulped natural" or "semi-washed," in which ripe beans are stripped of their skins, then allowed to dry naturally. This process speeds up drying while producing a sweet cup with good body - perfect for espresso blends.
In California in the spring of 1999, George Howell conducted cuppings with U.S. roasters and retailers to introduce the choicest Brazilian beans. Then in Lavras, a small university town in the heart of Brazilian coffee country, he and Vieira arranged a competition in the fall, with a star-studded panel of judges, including Ted Lingle and Kenneth Davids, followed by a worldwide internet auction of the beans. The competition attracted 315 samples from six different coffee-growing regions of Brazil, and it got the serious attention of the specialty world.
The use of internet auctions offers an attractive way to circumvent the low price standards set by the "C" contract on the New York coffee futures market. Anacafe in Guatemala has hired George Howell to help them set up a similar auction in 2001, and the Specialty Coffee Association of America has set up an ambitious program to encourage this approach. Ultimately, Howell hopes that such direct auctions will lead to the recognition and reward of sustainably superior coffees, similar to that already gained by La Minita in Costa Rica.
The annual Brazilian auctions will continue, along with the Model Farms program. Although the Brazilian specialty movement faces an uphill battle to improve quality on the smaller farms (cooperatives tend to resist quality differentiation), it has made an excellent beginning. In addition to boosting the coffee they export, Brazilians are drinking more coffee themselves, with better brews available in Brazil's more sophisticated cities. Incredibly, Brazil is now the second largest consumer of coffee, after the United States.
Investigative journalist and scholar, Mark Pendergrast lives in Vermont. His other books include “For God, Country and Coca Cola,” a new and revised paperback edition of which is available from Basic Books and “Victims of Memory.”
