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March 2014: Brazil Toco Red Catui

This coffee is available through the Coffee's of the World Club for March shipment.  You can sign up to receive receive monthly shipments for three, six or nine months.  

Brazil is the the largest coffee growing region in the world.  Previous to the rise of specialty coffee you could be assured that almost every commercially available coffee blend in the world contained Brazilian coffee.  Black Oak Coffee uses high quality Brazilian beans as a component in many blends.  These coffees, while they don’t offer a huge amount of acidity or fruited flavors are loaded with body and sweetness.  Brazilian coffees are comforting:  easy to drink, crowd pleasing, and consistent.  Two major factors give Brazil this character:

 Growing conditions & altitude:  Brazil does not have the very high altitude coffee growing regions of some other origins such as Colombia, Ethiopia, or Kenya.  For this reason the coffee cherries grow faster and have less density.  This results in a cup that has less acidity, more body and more overall chocolate tones. 

Processing:  Many Brazilian coffees are either full naturals or pulped naturals.  What this means is that the coffee cherries are cleaned and allowed to dry without a trip through a water bath to remove the mucilage after harvest.  This means that Brazilian coffees have a richer, milder flavor than other origins.  At best, this can taste like a fine chocolate ganache. 

 

To select this coffee of the month we tasted through many samples to select a coffee that offered the most excellent example of the best of Brazilian coffee.  This coffee is from the João Souza and his Grandson Tiago in the town of Campos Altos, Brazil.  This lot was selected from a block of the farm that contains predominantly Red Catuai shrubs. 

Tasting notes:  smooth, round, milky mouth feel with notes of barley malt syrup, milk chocolate and nuts