Brazil Fazenda do Lobo Microlot

Guilherme Foresti is at the forefront of a new generation of Brazilian farmers who are producing speciality coffees for the international market. In doing so they are reaching for a new customer base more interested in quality and sustainability than quantity.

One illustration of this shift is the agroforestry project that Gui has started on his farm. He has taken a small eucalyptus woodland planted by his father Marcos many years ago and planted a mix of Cedar trees, banana trees and the Arara variety of arabica coffee. “This practice is to reduce fertilisers, restore the soil and increase biodiversity,” Gui told Glen Lyon director Jamie during a visit in 2023.

Banana trees provide shade and the leaves that they shed act as a natural compost for the soil. Banana trees are also a great source of moisture as they hold onto water and help the coffee plants in times of drought, and the shade canopy also protects the coffee plants from frost. As a result the three-year-old coffee plants are much healthier than those on the rest of the farm and have already produced a bumper first crop which was picked by hand rather than harvested by machine. This, together with the multi storied canopy above, also contributes to a lower carbon footprint on the farm.

Today Brazil is the number one global coffee-producing country, supplying about a third of all the world's coffee. The country's coffee history, going back to the 1820s when production boomed due to increased demand from Europe and America, is inextricably linked to colonialism and slavery. Millions of slaves were imported to work the coffee fields, eventually supplemented by European immigrant labour as slavery was abolished abroad and then finally in Brazil.

A second boom in the late 19th century was driven by the states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais, causing a surge in internal migration that grew the city of São Paulo from a small town of 30,000 in the 1850s to a city of over a million by the 1930s.

By the 1920s Brazil enjoyed a near-monopoly on everybody's favourite beverage, supplying 80 percent of the world's coffee. This led to issues of oversupply leading up to the market crash and subsequent depression, and as production expanded in other countries by the 1950s Brazil's grip on global coffee production began to weaken.

Coffee in Brazil was deregulated in the 1990s, with government control ceding to the international markets. Today production is highly mechanized, although the sheer size of the country means that farms can range from giant, low-altitude plantations of robusta to small family-run farms growing high-quality arabica and experimenting with new varieties and processing methods.

Did you know?

• There are 220,000 coffee farms in Brazil covering 27,000 square kilometres, and some 3.5 million people are involved in the industry.
• Coffee is highly susceptible to frost, and due to its importance to the worldwide market the relatively frequent "black frosts" in Brazil can cause widespread economic volatility. Milder "white frosts" kill the flowers that will turn into cherries the next year, but harsher black frosts kill the whole tree and can cause longer-term devastation.
• Brazil is known for its low rainfall and abundant sunshine, which makes it ideal for utilizing the natural and pulped natural processing methods. Pulped natural or "semi-washed" involves removing some of the coffee cherry before drying, while with the natural process the cherries are merely rinsed briefly before being dried in the sun.

Our speciality coffees are 100% traceable and ethically sourced. We work direct with farmers, or through trusted partners, to bring you the best coffee from around the world.

Sourced directly from: The Foresti Family
Producer relationship length: 5 years

Rather than source our Brazilian coffee from a huge and nameless farm we choose to work with a smaller outfit that is still very much family owned and run. The Foresti family are fifth generation coffee farmers, and husband-and-wife team Marcus and Andrea have recently handed over the day-to-day management of Fazenda do Lobo to their son Guilherme (nicknamed Gui).

Named for the maned wolves that roam the hills above the farm, Lobo sits at 1050m above sea level in the beautiful region of Sul de Minas. Toucans and other birdlife are abundant on the farm which was established in 1996 and is Rainforest Alliance certified. The farm supports wild animals like the maned wolf and one third of the land is left uncultivated.