Brazil Vinicius Ignotti | "Volcano" Fermented Natural (House Coffee)
$19.95
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This exceptional Brazil lot comes to us from Vinicius Ignotti, from his farm, Caixetas Farm, in Cerrado Brazil.
The Ignotti family's coffee history begins in 1986 when Lúcia Elisa Ignotti and her husband Ricardo Wagner Ignotti moved from Paraná to the city of Patrocínio, Minas Gerais. Lúcia's father, Sebastião Almeida, encouraged the couple to move and gave them a small plot of land in the Chapadão de Ferro microregion where they would begin cultivating coffee. Eventually they saw the need and opportunity to expand their production, so they sold that first plot of land and purchased a larger farm in the same region where they continue coffee production today. In 2016, the family's operation underwent another expansion when they began renting Fazenda Caixetas in the city of Guimarânia, Minas Gerais. It was from this land, in their second harvest, that they would produce their first specialty coffee. Today, the family's business includes Lúcia and Ricardo's son Vinicius Wagner Ignotti, who is the fourth generation of coffee producers in the family. Vinicius has a drive to produce excellent coffees in his home of Cerrado Mineiro, focusing on Natural processing for their coffees. Vinicius manages the coffee production alongside his father Ricardo, while his mother Lúcia manages the administration of the farms. The family's legacy is now further cemented with the creation of the Ignotti Specialty Coffee Group, an operation on a continuous search to improve their production standards, valuing sustainability, and caring for the environment.
This coffee is quite special for a number of reasons, and honestly punching a bit outside its weight class, to borrow a boxing phrase, for showing up on our house menu, considering these things. For one, the varietal is an interesting one. Oeiras is a Red Caturra and Timor Hybrid variety developed at the Universidade Federal de Viçosa in conjuction with the national organization EPAMIG. This varietal was developed to have more resistance to changing climate conditions, unfortunately a mounting challenge for coffee in general, and for maintaining exceptional cup quality while improving its yield and productivity. The efficiency and resilience of the plant also allows producers to be that much more uncompromising in their handling of the coffee, as it helps to start with the higher yield and have less loss. It can be known for being quite fruity in profile, which is part of what makes this coffee so different than a totally traditional Brazil.
The other thing that makes this coffee so special, and just such a clean, sweet and bright mind changer on Brazilian coffees, is the processing method. Though natural processing is very common in Brazil, after being picked at peak ripeness, the cherries are allowed to rest and beginning a natural fermentation in thick layers, and then being fermented and dried for an extended period with what they call a “volcano fermentation”, involving mounding the coffee cherries in volcano shaped piles on the drying patio, to manipulate the fermentation, before flattening them out across the patio again over a 25-30 period. The resulting cup is notably articulated in cup clarity for a Brazil - stunningly clean, sweet and fruity but very approachable. Look for sweet red berries of all kinds, some sweet and molasses-like sugars reminiscent of turbinado sugars and lovely welcoming dark chocolate that rounds the cup and balances it’s complexity into its very approachable cup qualities.
This coffee is being roasted with two different roast profiles, one geared toward filter brewing that we’ll be putting on our house coffee, and the other more geared toward espresso.