Brazil - Fazenda De Mata (Pre Order)

We have just received this coffee fresh after working through the samples, roasting, tasting and ultimately choosing the lot we wanted to bring in. We are opening pre orders now ahead of the official release, with all orders shipping from 19th August. As always, we will roast the coffee first and put it through our own QC before anything leaves the roastery. It is something we do with every new coffee to make sure what ends up in your cup is exactly where we want it to be.

Flavour Profile - Chocolate / Dates / Crisp Acidity

Varietal - Arara

Welcome to Fazenda da Mata, a family run coffee farm in Brazil with a story that goes back to 1982.

I actually visited Fazenda da Mata before Behind the Label was even a company. I remember leaving the farm thinking that if I ever had the opportunity to work with them in the future, I would. The Cerri family were incredibly hospitable, the farm was amazingly well run and the attention to detail across everything they did really stuck with me.

One of the things I remember being particularly interested in was the Arara variety, and that is the coffee we have the opportunity to share today.

Arara is a relatively new Brazilian variety, developed from Yellow Catuaí and Obatã. It has become increasingly popular in Brazil because it combines great cup quality with good productivity and resistance to coffee leaf rust. It produces yellow cherries when ripe and, when grown and processed well, can produce incredibly sweet and complex coffees with lots of ripe fruit, clean acidity and great body.

For me, Arara is also a great example of how diverse Brazilian coffee can be. Brazil is often associated with those classic chocolate and nutty flavours, but varieties like Arara, combined with the level of care and precision I saw at Fazenda da Mata, can produce something much more complex.

At the heart of the farm is the story of Adonis Cerri. He left rural life at just 12 years old, but his love for coffee eventually brought him back. Through years of hard work, curiosity and a constant drive to improve, that childhood dream became Fazenda da Mata and today the next generations of the family are continuing that work.

Years after that first visit, Behind the Label exists and I finally get to work with a farm that made such an impression on me before BTL was even an idea.

And most importantly, the coffee is delicious.