From the sun-soaked plateau of Minas Gerais — why Brazil's natural Yellow Bourbon is the world's most important espresso foundation.
Brazil produces approximately 40% of the world's coffee. Most of it is commodity-grade, grown on vast mechanized farms in the state of São Paulo and Paraná, harvested by strip-picking and dried on concrete patios. None of that is what we source. The Coffee Power Brasil comes from a very different part of the country — Cerrado Mineiro, in the high plateau of Minas Gerais, where a small community of specialty farmers has turned Brazil's most recognizable coffee region into something worth paying attention to.
The Cerrado is a tropical savanna — vast, flat, sunny, with distinctly defined wet and dry seasons. The flat terrain allows for careful agricultural management in ways that the steep slopes of Colombia or Ethiopia do not. The altitude is lower here (900–1,200 meters) than in our other origins, but the extreme temperature variation between day and night achieves a similar effect to high-altitude farming: slow cherry maturation, concentrated sugars, complex flavor development.
Our Yellow Bourbon natural lot is dried on the farm's elevated drying patios for up to 30 days. The Yellow Bourbon variety, a natural mutation of the original Bourbon trees introduced to Brazil in the 1800s, produces a cup that is warmer and nuttier than its red cousin. Hazelnut, dark chocolate, dried fig, and vanilla — the flavors of a great espresso in their most essential form.
If you make espresso, this coffee should be in your regular rotation. Its heavy body, low acidity, and natural sweetness make it the ideal foundation for milk-based drinks. But don't dismiss it as an espresso-only coffee. Brewed as a filter in a French press or Chemex, the nuttiness and chocolate open into something more complex and rewarding than most people expect from Brazil.
