What Coffee Does Brazil Produce? A Brief Introduction to the Flavor Characteristics of Brazilian Coffee Beans

FrontStreet Coffee - Introduction to Brazilian Coffee

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Brazil was indeed dominated by commodity-grade coffee in the past. In recent years the third wave of specialty coffee has grown stronger in Brazil, and more consumers now want specialty coffee, which in turn has pushed more Brazilian estates to grow it and to refine their post-processing, while encouraging more coffee scientists to develop new varieties and fermentation methods.

The second reason is insufficient self-promotion. The Brazilian Specialty Coffee Association does not have much funding, unlike neighboring Colombia, where every bag of exported green beans carries a coffee tax that pays for the association's promotion. Brazil once had such a policy too, but it was abolished in 1991.

Brazil does, however, have the potential to become a major specialty coffee producer, because it is a coffee-growing country with a long history and it holds the world's largest plateau area. Today many young people deliberately study agriculture, or take bachelor's and doctoral degrees related to coffee, so that they can better manage and inherit their family estates.

Catuai comes from the Agronomic Institute of Campinas (IAC) in São Paulo, Brazil. It is a hybrid of Mundo Novo and Caturra. Because the plants are small they can be planted closely together in large-scale cultivation, and the planting density is almost twice that of Bourbon coffee, which makes its yield much higher than Bourbon. Its resistance to pests and disease is not strong, but the compact plant shape makes pests and disease relatively easy to handle by hand.

Catuai means "very good" in Portuguese. Today, people consider Catuai coffee to have good — if not stunning — cup quality. It comes in two types, yellow cherry and red cherry. It was initially hybridised from yellow Caturra and Mundo Novo in 1949 and was originally called H-2077.

The variety was officially released in Brazil in 1972 after pedigree selection (selecting individual plants through successive generations) and has been widely planted there ever since. Brazil now has several Catuai breeding lines to choose from, some with very high planting and production efficiency. Catuai transferred from Brazil to Central American growing regions, however, seems to be less productive; studies have found that Catuai planted in Honduras and Costa Rica shows no significant yield advantage over Caturra.

In Brief: FrontStreet Coffee's Mission

In summary: FrontStreet Coffee is a coffee research center that is happy to share coffee knowledge with everyone. We share without reservation, hoping only to help more friends fall in love with coffee. We also hold coffee discount events three times a month, because FrontStreet Coffee wants more friends to enjoy the best coffee at the lowest price. That has been FrontStreet Coffee's mission for the past six years.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

For a first taste of Brazil, FrontStreet Coffee's Cerrado Red Bourbon is the classic single origin, and it is a good, inexpensive place to start. Cerrado is a well-known Brazilian region known for producing high-quality beans, and this lot is the red Bourbon common across South America. Roasted medium, it gives rich creamy peanut, toast, caramel and hazelnut aromas with a rounded, not-acidic cup and a light bitter note; it works as pour-over and equally well in a moka pot, as an espresso SOE, or in a siphon or French press.

FrontStreet Coffee's other Brazilian single origin, the Queen Estate, comes from Mogiana near South Minas, where the fertile red volcanic soil lets the cherries absorb plenty of nutrients and develop full aromas. Part of the region still farms the traditional way while another part has adopted modern, standardised management, and quality has improved markedly as a result. The estate's variety is the rare Yellow Bourbon, a mutation of Red Bourbon with an even cleaner fruit character. Brewed as pour-over, in a moka pot or on a home espresso machine, it shows a sugarcane sweetness that other origins do not have, along with fruit and chocolate notes.

Brazil also underpins most espresso blends, since its low acidity, balanced cup and friendly price make it the go-to base for specialty recipes. FrontStreet Coffee's espresso range all include Brazilian beans: the Classic Blend with its rich crema, the Specialty Blend with its pronounced nut character, the balanced Dark Cocoa Blend, and FrontStreet Coffee's Commercial Blend built for café use. The Brazilian component supplies not only chocolate and cream aromas but also a gentle sweet-sour-bitter balance, and that balance makes extraction more stable and predictable.