BRAZIL | MANTIQUEIRA

Notes:
Chocolate, Cherry, Brown Sugar

A small town in the very heart of the Mantiqueira Mountains lies Carmo de Minas, home of some of the best coffees Brazil has to offer.

The Rio Verde Valley Coffee Growers Regional Cooperative or COCARIVE for short was established in 1961 by several rural coffee producers as a show of entrepreneurial and pioneering spirit. The aim was to create a reference point for both the high productivity and quality from the region. COCARIVE exported their first coffee in the year of 2011, and since then have made a reputation as the leading quality-driven co-op in Brazil.

With the majority of coffee production in the area over the altitude of 1,000 metres above sea level, the mild climate and fertile mountainous soils provide a quality differentiation from the rest of Brazilian coffee.

As a collective the co-op members produce around about 150,000 60Kg bags per year of coffee. All members have access to 3 full-time agronomists employed by the co-op as well as vocational training to provide education on best farming practices, spreading and improving modern cultivation techniques, and improvements in productivity and quality in harmony with their surrounding environment.

All coffee from members is received at the owned and operated warehouse in Carmo de Minas. From here lots are sampled, graded and cupped to understand the unique characteristics they possess, data logged for value maximisation and then processed for export.