At the same time we were cupping the Ethiopian Coffee, we were also cupping coffee from Brazil.  Over the course of three months we probaby cupped 40 different Brazils for both Espresso Blends, Single Origin Espresso, and as drip.  During our testing we found the Poco Fundo Fair Trade Organic coffee which we used in our Wests Best Spro .  This bean featured a slight fruitiness that we enjoyed as espresso and helped us earn the award for Best Espresso at the Western Regional Barista Championships in Berkeley, CA.  But we  don't settle on our laurels, so we continued experimenting and went back to our Brazil Yellow Bourbon - Fazenda Cachoeira for our US 08 Comp Blend .

We chose the Casheria for its beautiful orange citrus, its another great single origin, as most Brazils are.  During this same time period, and among the 40 different Brazils I mentioned, we found two more Brazils we loved on the cupping table.  While it was too late to use in our experimental espresso tests and we did not feature in our US Comp Blend, we could not deny their flavor as drip coffees. 

The first was our Fazenda Boa Vista . Lot 397 is the 6th place winner (out of about 1000 coffees) of a regional competition put on by Emater, a regional agricultural asociation in the southern part of the state of Minas Gerais, a highly prestigious micro-climate known for it's high elevation and distinctly citric  coffees. This is the extreme souther reaches of coffee production in Brazil, these coffees often are referred to as "Carmo Coffees" which is kind of a tag like "Antigua." It means it is grown near the Mantiquiera mountain range, and the micro-climate really determines the profile.  We submitted this coffee to Ken Davids of CoffeeReview.com who scored this coffee 94 points (highest among all Brazils and described it "Balanced, complex, complete. The quiet but assertive acidity was praised as 'balanced' by co-cupper Ted Stachura (93) and 'sweet, rich, integrated' by Ken (94). The mouthfeel was 'juicy' (Ted), the aroma and cup showed a crisply sweet complex of dry berry, cocoa, flowers, citrus, nut. Long, deep, chocolate-toned finish."