Ethel

Story

A relatively new hill classification, incorporating 95 hills, tors and trigs in the Peak District. It is named after the environmental campaigner and pioneer of the countryside movement, Ethel Haythornthwaite, who played an important role in the establishment of the UK’s national parks. This regional Mantiqueira Mountains Yellow Bourbon blend is produced by several smallholder farmers who are members of COCARIVE cooperative in Carmo de Minas. Coffees are selected by quality and variety, and are processed by our partners at COCARIVE. In order to be selected for their regional blends, farms must meet a set of quality criteria. The cup score target for this selection lies between 83 and 84. Balance and sweetness are the key features of this coffee. There are a growing number of farms in Brazil that are focusing more on cup quality than volume. These farms approach growing, harvesting and processing with a great attention to detail. The altitude and volcanic soil in Brazil are prime conditions for growing the balanced, well-bodied coffees of Brazil. Wide, flat farms make mechanization easier and allow for reduced production costs, making Brazil one of the few countries with consistently comfortable margins in the face of low world prices. The relatively flat landscape across many of Brazil’s coffee regions combined with high minimum wages has led most farms to opt for mechanical harvesting over selective hand-picking. In the past, this meant strip-picking was the norm; however, today’s mechanical harvesters are increasingly sensitive, meaning that farms can harvest only fully ripe cherries at each pass, which is good news for specialty-oriented producers. Ripe coffee is picked using a derricadeira – a sort of mechanised rake that uses vibration to harvest ripe cherry. A tarp is spanned between coffee trees to capture the cherry as it falls. Sustenta+ is a collaboration between COCARIVE and AgroCP, a fertilizer company focused on renewable fertilizers. Sustenta+ is a new certification that COCARIVE member farmers can attain by focusing on environmentally-sound coffee production techniques.