About the farm
Rancho Sao Benedito
The history of Rancho São Benedito's coffee production dates back to 1954 when Mariana de Carvalho Junqueira inherited the property from her parents. Along with the land, she inherited a deep love for growing coffee. Mariana significantly expanded the cultivated area and invested in the essential equipment needed for post-harvest coffee processing.
Today, Rancho São Benedito is surrounded by properties belonging to other family members. Together, this family group—Mariana, the matriarch, and her four children—cultivates coffees of the highest quality. As the family's land holdings have grown, more areas have been dedicated to coffee planting.
The quest for quality begins with the careful selection of cherries. For this Microlot, the process involved initial mechanical picking followed by a rigorous hand sorting to ensure uniformity. Immediately after sorting, the cherries are taken to the processing center, where they are prepared as natural, pulped natural, or washed. For this lot of Pulped Yellow Arara, the depulped beans are carried to both open-air and suspended patios, where they are meticulously dried in the sun for 15 days.
Sitio Santa Catarina
Sítio Santa Catarina is very much a family coffee story. When Sebastião’s grandfather passed away, the land in Pedralva was divided among his children, and in 1983 his father Benedito, mother Rosa and older brother planted the first coffee trees.
The early years were hard: the first plantings cupped poorly, and soon after a strong frost destroyed much of the work. Rather than give up, the family looked uphill, literally, and replanted on higher ground. The new plots performed better, and coffee became a passion handed down.
Today Sebastião runs the farm with his nephew José Rodrigo, more brother than next generation, under Benedito’s watchful eye. Of 28 hectares, about 5 are coffee: Yellow Bourbon, Red Catuaí and Yellow Icatu.
They credit much of their progress to CarmoCoffees and the Pedra Branca mill, whose feedback pushed them into soil analysis, pruning and raised beds. This lot is ripe Yellow Bourbon from the higher slopes, fermented 72 hours as whole cherry, dried slowly on raised beds, and milled to Screen 15+.
