Bra-Ru!
Brazil
She was a curvaceous golden brown, well-groomed and sweetly perfumed. And very, very fertile. Brazil is a moreninha formosa, and I have the pictures to prove it.
But that realization comes later in the story. The trip actually started in the Atlanta airport’s international terminal where we happened upon a large group of all colors, shapes and sizes: Brazilians returning from Disney World, with the souvenirs and noise to prove it. Two little ones with mouse ears whizzed by chanting “Chimoh e Pumbow!” (Timon and Pumba, I think) in a crazed state of Disney-randiness that continued onto and off of the plane. Don’t kids take naps? Scott snored in business class while I struggled to breathe in coach. At some point during the ten-hour haul, the overhead compartment flew open and – WHAM! – a small bag falls on my head …. hard. Please, I can’t make this up. I’m not looking for a cheap laugh. It happened, and when I finally looked up one of the little imps was pointing and squealing with laugher, unsure if he ever really left the Happiest Place on Earth.
So it’s much better far from there and driving into the countryside outside of São Paulo. The mega-city is all traffic held together by concrete and highrises, but the blue sky opens to greet us and the green fields spread the further we drive. In Espiritu Santo do Pinhal we arrive at the offices of Sumatra Cafés Brasil, a private producer itself responsible for more than twice as many bags as the country of Panama. Discovering the very best lots and improving upon them is an ongoing process and the main reason for our visit. As customary in Brazil, we are given a warm greeting and a wholesale introduction to everyone involved. Then, business. We’re led to the cupping table where we acquaint ourselves with our new crop purchases and open up some other lots to investigation. We find the samples still too early and lacking the full body and sweetness another month’s rest will give them, but the potential’s definitely there.
With dozens of farms spread over an area as large as the Southern United States, pinpointing quality is a giant road trip. The next morning we drive for hours and then drive some more, leaving pasture for sugar cane and sugar cane for coffee. The trees, dark green and heavy with cherry, are combed in arching rows over the folding hills that reach the distant horizon. Driving on and on and trying to comprehend 50 million bags and all of the producers and traders and shippers and roasters and consumers involved in the process, I’m reminded of the hours spent flying over the Amazon and realize that actually seeing such a wonder makes it even less fathomable …. and here I am, trying to put it into words (but please, read on).
After hours of scenery on a loop we get to Poços de Caldas, where we tour Sumatra’s centralized dry mill. We find it clean, cool, and cutting edge. It’s a major sorting and holding point for thousands of lots and where the transformation from tree to bag finally comes to an end. Mostly automated and completely computerized, with a show-stealing $500,000 grading machine, the set up impresses even the well-traveled. I’m captivated by the coffee stacked high above us, bags that have been collecting here for a month as the harvest is kicking into high gear. Eventually, we’ll follow it every step of the way.
At our next stop, Fazenda São José da Pedra Grande, we start at the source, finally getting lost in the trees. Brazilian coffee trees form giant hedges that are eight feet high, nearly impenetrable, hundreds of meters long and unlike anything in other producing countries. We watch some rows being stripped by hand. The cherries and leaves and branches and everything living in and on them falls onto tarps spread out below. The mess is collected and sifted through a mesh screen, thereby separating the fruit. It’s an impressive process but definitely the exception. Mechanical pickers rule, and we observe one of the bulky machines at it’s guided through the rows. Two-man teams rotate shifts all day and well into the night, shaking the trees of their yearly worth. As I think of all the jobs it must have moved from the country to the city, São Paulo grows that much bigger.
Far, far from the city though, in the stark Cerrado, we arrive on the fourth day to Fazenda Aurea with the sun setting over the dry, pink hills. We drive down “Main Street” (see Scott’s Brazilian trip report from last year for description) to the farm house and spend the evening talking about it – the process, the science, the origin, the business. There are 6.5 billion coffee trees in Brazil, almost one for each and every one of us, with hundreds of thousands of old ones dying and a greater number of young ones newly planted. The best sections within Fazenda Aurea – Alvorada and Moreninha Formosa – are in their prime and the Mondo Novo and yellow catuai trees are full of plump cherries in the cool of the early morning at 1200m above sea level. We tour the massive farm from field to mill, and I begin to understand that with the bulging fruit, pristine climate, and meticulous sorting, the cups will continue to be sweet and heavy and clean. A little dirty, we decide, wouldn’t be so bad, especially if the fruit is also pronounced. We spend the afternoon collecting raisins – fruit dried on the branch – from sections throughout the estate, hoping to find some Yemen in Brazil. A multicultural country it is.
Everyone on Fazenda Aurea – from the manager quoting production statistics to the sweeper lining his rows of drying coffee up with the sun – is well-informed and hard working. João Antonio, our generous host and the company’s owner, laughs at me and my perspective and says, “os olhos do dono engordam a vaca.” The owner’s eyes fatten the cow. I wonder, is it any coincidence that we eat steak again that night? When they ask me if I like mine, I say “tudo bem,” and it makes sense. It’s all good here and now in Brazil – from the coffee to the coast, the clichés all make sense. Moreninha Formosa, I learn, means “full-bodied brown girl.” To that I say yes, in more ways than one.
The transition to Peru is arduous. It takes a little more than twenty fours hours non-stop from the Brazilian port of Santos, where we visited the famed Museu do Café. We leave the Atlantic coast in the morning and by lunch the next day I find myself somewhere in the Andes, sitting in front of a fried Guinea pig, fork and knife in hand. It’s not as delicious as it sounds. Jaén isn’t as nice as I imagined it would be, either, but there’s definitely a sense of urgency and life. The moto-taxis motor by under the half-constructed, single-story brick buildings, their exposed rebar pointing into the sky in an international symbol of developing-world hope.
At the Louis Dreyfus dry mill, the hopeful representatives of a dozen cooperatives arrive for a tour and to meet with “Zay-feyr” Green Coffee. Everyone shakes hands, and we proceed to the cupping room where each co-op is represented on the cupping table. First, though, introductions from each group and speeches about the importance of communication, consistency, quality, and conservation. It’s a similar message the coffee world over, and it’s not what’s important here. Instead, we listen to the voices, watch the faces, and notice the worn hands. We exchange nods and briefly lock eyes, trying our best to establish the direct relationship we’ve all heard so much about. And I’m there in the middle of it all, the Spanish flowing to and fro rhythmically, the meeting moving in circles. At some point, I’m watching the entire scene with a bird’s-eye perspective: Scott looking at his watch, myself writing notes, the speaker gesturing in speech, the sun trickling through the barred windows and onto concrete floor, dusty and gray … and I wonder, “Where the hell am I and how did I get here? Who are these people?” There’s silence. I scan through a roomful of eyes trained upon me, awaiting an answer. “Let’s cup!” I say to cheers, and the trip continues.
Heavy sleep is shaken free by the early morning buzz common in the developing world. 7:00 a.m. and streets back home are quiet and empty, but by 6:30 here the chickens are scratching and the dogs are hustling for something, anything. Mothers cook while children bathe and fathers are already gone to work. At least half of them in Jaén drive moto-taxis for a living. There are more of them swerving through the unmarked streets than there are potential passengers walking along the sides. You’d think they were all walking to work in helmet shops, but there isn’t a single one worn as I observe through the noise and smoke on the town’s main thoroughfare. Next door to the hotel construction workers are already heaving and hefting and pouring concrete around that rebar that’s guiding them upward. I watch as one guy uses a rock to cut some wire to bind two ladders together to – according to Scott – retrieve the wire cutters that he forgot on the roof yesterday. And the trip continues.
Heading north into the mountains and towards the town of San Ignacio, tropical sun glitters through 60km of fairway-green rice paddies that fill the river valley below us on the right. As the road rises, the valley narrows, the paddies give way to rock, and the river starts to rage and clear. The bright day is lost in the clouds of the pass, and from high we can see San Ignacio ahead, nestled in a bowl of green mountains. We’re in coffee trees as we descend into the town, and I realize that they’re what make the mountains green. In fact, it’s everywhere: on the slopes, drying in the streets, stacked in bags on the sidewalks, passing us by in trucks … San Ignacio is the epicenter of the region’s coffee culture, and the ground trembles with its weight.
We spend the day visiting the headquarters of five cooperatives: Unicafe, Aprocassi, Frontera, El Milagro, and Bosques Verdes. They give the similar introductory speeches and receive the same response from me. I still have it memorized. Again, though, the encounters are more about finally seeing one another, shaking hands and meeting eyes, and it’s when the formalities end that the visits reveal their true worth. Each representative has his own personality as does each cooperative. From disposition to size to strengths and weaknesses, they’re all unique. Unicafe proves to be well-organized and full of energy and potential, and Aprocassi has tremendous social programs and a history of consistent quality. Frontera’s facilities are unmatched, with a centralized wet mill in the works and a dry mill already functional, and El Milagro’s relative microclimate sets it apart in the cup. At Bosques Verdes, we’re given cups of coffee liquor, and the connection is immediately forged. They might be best in negotiations. We demand a full container, but two gift bottles eventually suffice.
The last morning leaving Jaén and I’m feeling damn sick and tired. The trip is quite worn and beginning to unravel, although a long journey remains. It’s the worst part – when there’s little new to see, no more work to do, and nothing on the itinerary but time and travel. We begin the climb out of Jaén, and the country’s hot and dry. The river’s moving against us on the left, interrupted frequently by buses barreling downhill past us, seemingly too easy on the squealing brakes. The road lifts and curves and doubles back, and my headache and stomach gets worse. Has the bus already hit us? When will it, then!? Window down for fresh air, I slowly notice a change. With more altitude comes less temperature, and the dry air turns misty. The smell of rain and fresh wet rock fills the car. At the pass the hanging clouds clear and the air is cool and crisp and bright blue as we begin our descent back into the inviting mist and towards the airport in Chiclayo. The river now moves with us and the buses, once barreling down, now lumber up. I’m feeling better and realize that it’s all downhill from here, in more ways than one.- Jordan Hooper, September 2008
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