Samambaia Farm Red Catuaí - Brazil

Samambaia Farm is located near the town of Poços de Caldas in a small town named Andradas. Although the farm is not to be confused with the famous Fazenda Samambaia owned by Henrique Dias Cambraia, which has long been a highlight of Mercanta’s Brazil offerings, this Samambaia is equally a farm devoted to speciality coffee.

The farm has been in the Mosconi family for three generations and was originally purchased by the grandfather of current owner, Mr. Carlos Mosconi. Carlos’s grandfather was an Italian immigrant who arrived in Brazil with big dreams for the future. He established Samambaia (which means ‘fern’ or ‘bracken’ in Portuguese) on land previously under-used and his hard work and high standards set the tone for the following generations. Carlos picked up the reigns in his adulthood and has led the farm to focus on specialty coffee since 2012.  

Carlos Eduardo Venturelli Mosconi was born in Andradas and is a doctor by training. He was a Professor of Medicine, in fact, until 1982, when he began to apply his skills to politics. He has served on in different councils and offices, with a strong focus on health care issues. As an extension of his political work and his personal role as a coffee farmer, he has also served as a member of the Deliberative Council of Coffee Policy, in Brasilia. In the Assembly, Mosconi defends the development of public policies for the development of coffee, wine, Minas artisanal cheese, among other traditional products of the State.

Carlos does not let a successful political career stand in the way of his coffee farm, however. The farm is lucky to be blessed with very rich, volcanic soil, which is also a boon to the vineyards owned by the family. Of the farm’s 72 hectares, 40 are occupied by plantations of Catuaí, Mundo Novo, Yellow Bourbon and Catucaí coffee trees.  Other parts of land are used for vineyards and other purposes.

Although the farm is not as large as some other Brazilian farms, Samambaia is able to support 15 families. Harvesting on the farm is undertaken with a great effort towards preserving quality. Picking is 100% manual and only ripe, red cherries are delivered to the farm’s raised beds for the highest quality lots. Other lots are delivered to the farm’s patios or mechanical dryers. All processing on the farm is currently done using the natural method.

In the future, Carlos plans to continue to improve the quality of his coffee even further. He has already earned 1st place at the Andradas Coffee Quality Contest two years in a row (crops 2013/2014 and 2014/2015), but he knows that he and his team can do even better. In particular, the team he has employed plans to do more training on harvesting methods, focusing on selective picking. There are also plans to improve post harvest activities in the future.