Brazil is a coffee giant . As Frank Sinatra sang, “they grow an awful lot of coffee in Brazil”.: Brazil is a coffee giant . As Frank Sinatra sang, “they grow an awful lot of coffee in Brazil”. It’s the largest producer of low grade arabicaArabica refers to Coffea Arabica, the taxonomic species name of the genus responsible for around 75% of the worlds commercial coffee crop.: Arabica refers to Coffea Arabica, the... ...more coffee, and a lot of Conilon robustaAteng is a common name for Catimor coffees widely planted in Sumatra and other Indonesia isles.: Ateng, with several subtypes, is a common name for Catimor coffees widely... ...more too. Brazil: there is some in almost every espressoA small coffee beverage, about 20 ml, prepared on an espresso machine where pressurized hot water extracted through compressed coffee.: In its most stripped-down, basic form, this is... ...more you drink. In fact, some espresso is 90% Brazil. And there is Brazil in most canned coffee and big roasters’ blends.
But things are changing in Brazil. There’s the big push on behalf of Brazilian coffee growing associations to recreate the image of Brazilian as exquisite and distinctive Specialty-level coffee. And some of it is true Specialty coffeeSpecialty coffee was a term devised to mean higher levels of green coffee quality than average "industrial coffee" or "commercial coffee". At this point, the term is of... ...more, but the majority is still common, low-grade, low-grown arabica. There just isn’t the extreme distinction from cup to cup that distinguishes one regional coffee from another. Attention to good farming and processingThe removal of the cherry and parchment from the coffee seed.: Coffee is either wet-processed (also called washed or wet-milled) or dry-processed (also called wild, natural or natural... ...more techniques has helped, but the coffee is grown at lower altitudes than most Specialty coffee, in non-volcanic soils, in non-forested areas that are sometimes originally grassland (a reason why the “shade-grown issue” really doesn’t apply much to Brazil —the coffee farming areas had little shade to begin with.) Am I saying Brazilian coffee is bad… no. I love these high-quality Brazilian coffees, and you should try it as a Full City or even Vienna roastVienna roast occurs at the beginning of second crack. The Vienna stage is where you begin to find origin character eclipsed by roast character.: Vienna roast occurs at... ...more: its great! And nothing touches a really good Dry-processed or Pulped-Natural Brazil as a base in Espresso blends. They produce more cremaCrema is a dense foam that floats on top of a shot of espresso. It ranges in color from blond to reddish-brown to black. Blond crema may be... ...more and bodyAssociated with and sensed by mouthfeel, body is sense of weight and thickness of the brew, caused by the percentage of soluble solids in the cup, including all... ...more, adding sweetnessSweetness is an important positive quality in fine coffees, and is one of five basic tastes: Sour, Sweet, Salty, Bitter, Savory (Umami). In coffee, sweetness is a highly... ...more and providing a great backdrop for the feature coffees. Brazil can be nuttyNutty is a broad flavor term, reminiscent of nuts ... but what kind exactly?: Nutty is a broad flavor term, reminiscent of nuts. It is tied intrinsically to... ...more, sweet, low-acid, and develop exceptional bittersweetBittersweet is from the language of chocolate, and describes the co-presence of positive bittering compounds balanced by sweetness. It is directly related to caramelization, but has inputs from... ...more and chocolateA general flavor or aroma term reminiscent of chocolate. But what type? Usually described with more specifics.: Chocolate is a broad, general flavor or aroma term reminiscent of... ...more roast tastes. The caveat is, Brazils are not dense coffee seeds: they are grown at lower altitudes than Central American coffees. Hence the very dark roasts of Brazils pick up ashyThe smell or taste of ash, such as an ashtray, cigarette smoke, or fireplace. Often a roast defect.: A quality in aroma or flavor similar to that of... ...more, bittering flavors. For espresso, you can roast Brazils lighter, separately, or keep the entire blend at a Vienna roast or lighter: Northern Italian Espresso re: Illy’s “Normale.” Note that there are 3 processes of processing Brazil coffees of interest to us; Natural Dry- Process, Pulped Natural, and Semi-WashedAn uncertain term to describe a coffee processing technique somewhere between wet-process and dry-process: Semi-washed has been used, most commonly in Brazil, to describe a hybrid coffee process.... ...more. They produce different types of cups. The Natural has great body, chocolate, possibly fruityIn some coffee taster’s lexicon, “fruity” means the coffee is tainted with fruit, and “fruited” means a coffee is graced by positive fruit notes. We don't exactly see... ...more notes … and it risks being earthier and more rusticA general characterization of pleasantly "natural" flavors, less sophisticated and less refined, but appealing. : What is Rustic? This is a general term we came up with... Dried... ...more in the cup. The Pulped Natural is when the coffee cherryOriginally coffee literature referred to the fruit of the tree as a "berry" but in time it became a cherry. It is of course neither. Nor is the... ...more skin is removed and the parchmentGreen coffee still in its outer shell, before dry-milling, is called Parchment coffee (pergamino). In the wet process, coffee is peeled, fermented, washed and then ready for drying... ...more, with a lot of the mucilageMucilage indicates the fruity layer of the coffee cherry, between the outer skin and the parchment layer that surrounds the seed. It readily clings to the inner parchment... ...more attached, is sun dried on patio or raised drying bed. This coffee cups like the fully Naturals but is a bit cleaner in the cup. The Semi-Washed uses a demucilageDemucilage refers to a method to remove the fruity layer of coffee cherry... the called mucilage. Mucilage is the layer between the outer skin and the parchment layer,... ...more machine to remove the skin and some or all of the mucilage. So the Semi-Washed ranges in character from being identical to Pulped Natural to being similar to a Wet-processed coffee (clean cupClean cup refers to a coffee free of taints and defects. It does not imply sanitary cleanliness, or that coffees that are not clean (which are dirty) are... ...more, uniform, less body, less chocolate, a bit brighter). I like good Naturals- they have more intensityWe have a simple scale to rate intensity in our coffee reviews, from Mild to Bold. Low intensity does not mean low quality!: We have a simple scale... ...more, produce more crema, but I have to cup them rigorously to watch for defective cup character. On the other end of things, really clean Semi-Washed, where a lot of the mucilage is removed, do not have Brazil character to me.
