Brazil Coffee

Coming from the largest coffee producing country in the world, you know that a cup of Brazil coffee is going to hit the spot. It comes in a range from cheap mass produced coffee to the best espresso brewed coffee bean. When producing Brazil coffee the fruit is removed from the coffee bean. This is accomplished by four different methods and it is not uncommon for all of the methods to be used the same farm. It is also common for all four methods to be used during the same harvest of the coffee as well.

These beans are grown at a lower altitude than other coffee beans of the world that are grown in places with higher altitudes such as Central America, Columbia, and East Africa. These other coffee producing areas grow their coffee at around 5,000 feet in altitude while Brazil coffee is grown at around 2000 feet. The growth of Brazil coffee in lower altitudes brings about a low acidity of the coffee bean as the beans of the Brazil variety are round, sweet, and well nuanced while the others produced at higher altitudes have beans that are big and bright.

Two of the more traditional coffees of Brazil are Santos Brazils and Estate Brazils. These types of Brazil coffee are the types that you will most likely find in a specialty coffee store. They have been dried inside the fruit. Therefore the sweet nature of the fruit is transferred to inside the cup of coffee. It usually is derived from the coffee trees of the traditional variety of Arabica, which is called bourbon. The finest types of Brazil coffee are traded as Santos 2.

If the coffee bean comes only from the bourbon coffee bean trees the coffee is called Bourbon Santos 2. The name Santos is derived from the port in which the coffee beans are generally shipped from. The 2 on the name of Santos 2, or any type of coffee, is the grade as 2 is the highest grade of Brazil coffee. The 2 is usually not present when the coffee is presented on menus of specialty coffee stores so the beverage will only be shown as Brazil Bourbon Santos or Brazil Santos.

In order to make the coffee bean light, beans grown in Brazil are wet-processed. Sometimes the coffee is dried without the skins on them but the pulp from the fruit that is still stuck on the beans absorbs the sweetness from the pulp. This makes the Brazil coffee full and sweet much like if the beans were to be drying processed. Dry processing is the process this premium coffee undergoes when being shipped to the United States. Dry processed coffee is also called “natural” coffee.