April 2012’s pick

Brazil Mogiana Bella Giana

Delicate, hard-to-find flavours from the world’s largest coffee producer? Absolutely.

An unexpected choice

At Kopi we go to the ends of the earth to bring you the world’s best small-batch, gourmet coffee. This month we found it in a surprising place: Brazil.

Our coffee experts’ personal verdicts

Jim, 35 years in the coffee trade
“If I had to pick my desert island coffee, this would be it. Bella Giana is simply delicious, a great example of the very best from the world’s largest coffee producer.”

Geoff, 35 years in the coffee trade
“Most people believe that Brazilian coffees are like flour in a sauce – they add body but no flavour – we chose this one to change their minds. Ciao Bella!”

The super-producer starts to turn around

Brazil is the world’s largest producer of low-grade Arabica beans – the kind you find in instant coffee and own-brand espresso. It’s a mass-market product used to bulk out most of the world’s blended coffees. In fact, many mainstream roasters’ espressos are 90% Brazil-grown.

Suffice it to say, you wouldn’t expect to find a really special, small-batch coffee in a market like this. But a transition is taking place: no longer content with being known as a high-yield, low-grade super-producer, Brazilian coffee growing associations are trying to revive the old days, when Brazilian coffee was sought-out for its quality and complexity. A select few growers are evolving from epic, low-altitude operations to smaller plantations at higher altitudes, where tightly controlled eco-friendly methods are yielding some of the sweetest shade-grown coffee Brazil has known for years. Mogiana Bella Giana is one of them.

A precious private reserve

Like all Kopi coffees, Bella Giana is 100% sustainable and traceable. The coffee you’re drinking is a private reserve blend hand-crafted by Benecke, a Hamburg-based trader that works with six particular farms in the Guaxupe Cooperative in Mogiana. These farms sit at between 3,000 and 3,900 feet above sea level, where beans take longer to mature. This extra time yields a sweet richness of flavour that lower-grown beans can’t achieve.

How zealously does Benecke guard its private reserve? Closely enough that both name and coffee have been legally registered. Bella Mogiana is a precious commodity.

The Colonel, the coffee and the Governor’s wife

Coffee isn’t even native to Brazil, and but for one man’s charms, the global coffee map would look very different indeed.

Legend has it that by the turn of the 18th century, the Brazilian government was desperate for a cut of the ever more lucrative coffee market. When a border dispute with coffee-growing French Guiana flared up in 1727, the charismatic Lt. Col. Francisco de Melo Palheta was dispatched to mediate… and see what he could do about the coffee situation.

The Colonel played to his strengths: after squaring away the border issue he turned the full force of his charms to the Governor’s wife. Wise to his intentions, though unable to resist, she presented her lover with a special farewell gift at the final state dinner – a bouquet spiked with coffee seedlings and a handful of seeds. From these forbidden shoots, a global empire grew.

Tasting notes

This is a milder, medium roast coffee with a sweet, delicately spicy flavour. The wet aroma is of toasted almonds, and the coffee’s soft acidity and buttery aftertaste make it perfect for cafetiere or filter coffee. It’s incredibly easy to drink.

Connoisseurs take note: unlike most coffees which play on the front of your tongue, Bella Giana’s slightly nutty tones hit on the centre and back of your tongue. See if you can detect the blend’s subtler tones: milk chocolate, caramel, and woodsy, fermented fruit.

Mococa farm image © mauroguanandi on Flickr, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en_GB