Farm and producer: Fazenda Rodomunho, Thiago Corsi da Silva
Harvest: 2025
TASTING NOTES
Dark chocolate, tropical fruit, sweet cherry
WHY WE LIKE IT
Dark chocolate marks the first sip: clean and with a deep sweetness. From there, the cup opens with juiciness towards notes of tropical fruit and sweet cherries.
It reminds us of a candied cherry with a cocoa coating, with a concentrated sweetness and layers of complexity.
The body is medium, with a lively acidity that keeps it fresh and well-rounded. A very expressive coffee with character, that you'll want to savor slowly.
HISTORY
The Cerrado Mineiro is one of the great denominations of Brazilian coffee, and one of the best illustrations of how territory can be an advantage. This savanna plateau stretching across the northwest of Minas Gerais has a very distinct seasonality: concentrated rains between October and April, and a long, defined dry season that coincides exactly with the harvest, between May and August.
This climatic precision allows the coffee trees to ripen uniformly, for harvesting to be done when the fruit is at its optimal point, and for the subsequent process to begin with the best possible raw material. Rio Paranaíba, on the border between Minas Gerais and Mato Grosso do Sul, is in the highest part of this denomination, where large estates coexist with smaller producers who are committed to differential quality.
Fazenda Rodomunho is a 90-hectare farm at 1,100 meters above sea level, nestled on a high, almost flat plateau surrounded by a valley rich in springs and rivers. This geography has direct consequences: the altitude, the microclimate generated by the valley, and the natural barrier formed by the topography against the wind create very particular conditions within the Cerrado.
Thiago Corsi da Silva knows them in detail after years of observation and exhaustive traceability. For him, the secret to exceptional coffee lies in thoroughly understanding the farm: knowing what happens in each plot and at every moment of the season to be able to anticipate the result even before harvesting.
In 2019, Thiago took the helm of specialty production and since then has guided the farm in a clear direction: regenerative agriculture. Not as a trend, but as a conviction. For him, caring for the soil is the most honest answer to climate challenges and the only guarantee of a future for the farm. He extends this same care to the people who work with him: a relationship based on dialogue and mutual respect that, according to Thiago, translates directly into the attention with which the coffee is treated throughout the entire process.
VARIETAL AND PROCESS
Sidra is a variety that originated in Ecuador, where it was developed at Hacienda La Papaya from a cross between Bourbon and Typica. It is a plant with high cup potential but demanding in cultivation: sensitive and delicate, it requires more attention and care than the more common varieties of Cerrado. For this reason, it is still uncommon in Brazil, and lots of Sidra with a specialty profile are scarce. The fact that Thiago cultivates it at Fazenda Rodomunho, and achieves the results he does, speaks volumes about both the terroir of Rio Paranaíba and the level of dedication he puts into the farm.
The process applied to this lot is known as dark room: fermentation in a cold chamber with the temperature stabilized at 18 degrees Celsius throughout the process, without added yeasts but with the presence of oxygen. The objective of thermal control is to slow down fermentation and make it more predictable: at low temperatures, microbial activity is slower and more uniform, which reduces the risk of defects and allows the fruit to work gradually and in a controlled manner. The result is a natural coffee with the characteristic complexity of fermentation, but with a cleanliness and consistency that would be more difficult to achieve at room temperature. It is a technique that requires infrastructure and a lot of attention, and in this case, it allows the variety and origin to reach the cup without interference.
RECIPE
We use 18 grams of ground coffee and 320 grams of water at 93°C. We pour in three stages: a first pour of 54 grams, wait 45 seconds, then two pours of 133 grams each, for a total brew time of 2'50".
