Sure, Brazil is great for football, but it’s great for coffee, too. In fact, while in football it has suffered humiliation and sustained many a crushing defeat, as a coffee producer it has been an undisputed champion for over 100 years: it never lost first place in the coffee trade, and at its peak, it commanded 80% of the global coffee production. Of course, Quantity rarely equals quality unless if you are Bach or Sargent. Coffees produced in Brazil cover the whole gammut from wizards to howler merchants. This is obviously a reason why I ‘ve seen many coffee drinkers steering away from brazilian coffees, not unlike a coach who’s suspicious of that obscure brazilian attacker, whose top selling point is that he goes by his forename.
I can see their point, but I generally beg to differ. My trust in brazilian products has been consistently rewarded, with the exception of late Sepultura. Besides, when it comes to coffee, it’s quite trivial to filter out the likely-to-be-bad varieties just by reading the label carefully, so the risk of taking one home is quite small. One of the best ones I’ve tasted, in Lisbon, comes from the hills of Minas Gerais, a state in Southeastern Brazil. I honestly hoped that I would have a chance to taste something similar again sometime. It was no surprise that after my last visit to the coffee shop, I came home with a bag of beans from Carmo de Minas.
«Carmo de Minas, land of the best coffees of Brazil.» I can’t help but appreciate the modesty, given how easy it would be to just claim global supremacy.
Welcome to my life, little friend.
According to the label, the coffee is of the yellow bourbon variety and has been submitted to the natural drying process. Yellow bourbon is quite a popular variety in Latin America. The natural process involves drying the whole cherry separating the seeds from the outer layers of the fruit, and it is generally thought to increase sweetness and reduce acidity. But enough reading, on to pulling some shots!
First attempt
The coffee was roasted four weeks before I opened the bag. The aromas that wafted in the air when I took the seal off were very appetising. I could carry on inhaling deeply with my nose pressed in the bag a lot longer, but the purpose of coffee is not to be inhaled, but to be drunk. Time to cut to the chase then. I kicked off the process of dialling in the shot, by weighing 20 grams of fresh coffee beans. I ground it using the setting I had used the day before, around 75 degrees from 0 (the mill has a circular dial but the marks are too coarse to be usable in describing fine adjustments, so I use degrees). I stopped the brewing process as soon as the net weight of the espresso in my cup reached 25 grams.
Not bad, but I’ll pass.
The looks and the scent of the fruit of my initial attempt were not at all disheartening, but there was definitely room for improvement. The coffee was obviously under-extracted. A little sip confirmed what was indicated by the visual hints. The coffee was ground too coarse. Given that good coffee, for me, has a condensed consistency, and that my holy grail of espresso is a dense, almost viscous ristretto, the coffee had to be ground finer.
| Grind adjustment (degrees) | 75 |
| Net weight of ground coffee (g) | 20 |
| Net weight of extracted liquid (g) | 25 |
| Brewing temperature (°C) | 93 |
| Brewing time (s) | ~30 |
| Notes | Not too bad, but under-extracted |
Second Attempt
After fine tuning the grind setting (by about 5 degrees), keeping the rest of the factors constant―at least the ones I can control―, I repeated the process. I pulled a 24,5 grams shot in 35 seconds.
Another 20 grams of beans go into the grinder. 
Great warm earth tones in the crema means we are definitely on to something.
The result was a great improvement: The crema was a rich warm earthy brown, and the texture was full and complex. Definitely a cup of coffee that I would gladly drink wherever I could get it, but also one that left me with the impression that it had not yet fully unraveled its virtues; I felt it had more to say. If I stopped here the 40 grams I had consumed already would have been sacrificed in vain. The quest had to go on.
| Grind adjustment (degrees) | 70 |
| Net weight of ground coffee (g) | 20 |
| Net weight of extracted liquid (g) | 25 |
| Brewing temperature (°C) | 93 |
| Brewing time (s) | ~35 |
| Notes | Very good; lacking a bit of intensity and depth |
Third attempt
For what came to be the final attempt, I increased the dose to 21 grams, keeping everything else constant. With this I hoped to enhance texture and intensity. It took 49 seconds to pull a 25 gram shot. (The discrepancy in the brewing time may have to do with my tamping technique. I almost never get channelling, but I think I sometimes push to hard on the tamper, giving my machine a run for its money).
The crema was exactly what I was aiming for: an unhomogeneous, deep warm brown surface with dark brown spots scattered all over. Compared with the unappetising, pale ochre of the first attempt, it was night and day. This was a clear indication that the increased input dosage helped steer the extraction to the direction of a dense, rich, syrupy ristretto. This was confirmed by the first sip: thoroughly enjoyable, balanced yet complex, smooth, yet still able to trigger that pleasant burn at the back of the palate.
| Grind adjustment (degrees) | 70 |
| Net weight of ground coffee (g) | 21 |
| Net weight of extracted liquid (g) | 25 |
| Brewing temperature (°C) | 93 |
| Brewing time (s) | ~49 |
| Notes | Flavourful, moderate acidity, good body but not as syrupy as others |
In summary, São Francisco is hands down a great coffee. It might not have the thick body of other favourites, but it is still packed with flavour. I am sure I’ll get many more great shots out of it, and probably look for it again next time I am out shopping for beans.
I used the following equipment for all tests (unless otherwise specified):
| Espresso machine | QM Alexia Evo |
| Grinder | Eureka Spezialita |
| Basket | VST ridgeless 21g |
| Tamper type | Flat |
| Distributor | Belogia |