Brazil Field Report

8 coffee farms, one vineyard, one brewery, 5 exporters, 10 days, over 2000km travelled. That is just a short summary of the recent Brazil Coffeehunter 2024 Harvest Trip. Join Mercanta founder, Stephen Hurst, as he guides a group of coffee folks through Brazil.

Splendid hospitality guaranteed, I wanted to introduce clients and Mercanta staff to the coffee market’s linchpin origin. First timers and seasoned travellers alike thoroughly enjoyed the trip, including the unexpected benefit of the camaraderie and fraternity of the travel companions in the mini-van.

Our trip was specifically targeted to be during the Brazil Harvest, in other words during May, June, July or August. Each year, depending on the region and climate, the crop could be early or late, fast or slow, big or small.

Take-aways from the 2024 Brazil crop. The crop is early, some of the smaller producers harvests were complete. The larger farms would finish harvesting by early to mid -August. The weather, the climate, I will return to. For now, the weather, extremely dry, is ideal for the harvest and is part of the reason why the harvest is coming in quickly this year. The hot and dry climate in the coffee areas (our visit focused on Minas Gerais and the Mogiana Minas/Sao Paulo border area) is excellent for bringing in the current crop, avoiding problems with coffees drying on patios. But the hot and dry weather could portent a disaster with the 2025 crop, should rains fail on into September and October.

Our trip took place in late July, the Brazilian winter. Temperatures in single digits in the coffee areas are not uncommon during the Brazil Winter, yet this Winter has seen high lows and high highs, and hardly a few days with temperatures below 10 even at night. There is still a month to run in the Winter, so low temperatures and rainfall both bear careful scrutiny.

For seasoned visitors and newcomers, it was fascinating to see and compare fully mechanised farms, fully manual farms, farms that are 50/50. We visited small, medium and large producers. We saw irrigation, new irrigation projects underway (climate change is appearing to make irrigation in Minas Gerais/Mogiana a necessity rather than a luxury), and farms with no irrigation. We saw farms with trees already stressed from lack of rainfall, and those that did not look too bad, and those that were the picture of verdant.

Another feature referred to by all the producers that we met, was the smaller bean size of the current harvest. Screen 17/18 coffees, prized in some consumer markets, are particularly rare. There is no issue with scr 15/16 coffees highly used by our particular clients, but the largest of the beans sizes are the challenge this crop.

Returning to the weather theme, as this is critical for the next crop. Rains in the coffee areas will be needed by the end of September, if not earlier, to avoid lasting damage to the 2025 crop, and the requisite effect that would have on the commodity coffee price.

I mentioned visiting a vineyard and a micro brewery, both of these visits helping break the mould of pre-conceived ideas. The wine at Guaspari vineyard is not good Brazilian wine, it is good wine, and one that we tasted would grace any table and likely be an award winner at international competitions. Although wine grape production is known in the far south of Brazil, along the border with Argentina, many will be surprised to find vineyards well within the coffee area, Guaspari is in Espirito Santo do Pinhal. This area is in the midst of coffee production, and, in fact, used to be (and still is in a small part), a coffee farm.

During Cup of Excellence #100 some years ago, we had been based in Lavras, where the first Cup of Excllence international jury was held in 1999. While in Lavras, I enjoyed a visit to a small micro-brewery there called Joia Mesquita. And our group was able to return to visit the husband and wife team at Joia Mesquita on this trip, and to enjoy numerous styles of beer, some of which were award winners, and once again break some preconceived ideas about beer and where it is made.

Back to coffee, and some other take-aways from the trip. Labour problems that we hear at every origin. Climate issues, in this case unusual drought with many farms visited reporting zero rain whatsoever for 3+ months. EUDR and other compliance and regulatory issues were noteworthy on every visit.

I challenge anyone not to be impressed with Brazil, whether it is the hospitality, the friendly reception, the professionalism, the genuine friendships (we visited a number of farms with whom Mercanta has been working for 20+ years such as Fazenda Passeio and Fazenda Cachoeira da Grama, the Grandfather of Brazil Specialty coffee farms. What happens in Brazil in coffee reverberates everywhere, so it is fair to say events which can add or subtract 5 millions bags a year to global coffee production are the very epitome of a bellweather.