Page 44 - #49 English

Culture

new species of plants imported from overseas and those
developed in collaboration with IAC in the Micro lot.
The lot was filled with various exotic seedlings, such as
the seedlings of the imported Panama Geisha to seed-
lings that have been grafted with a lemon tree. Once the
tour of the six farms was complete, we headed to the lab
to learn more about the species growing in Brazil and
methods of processing them. There, we found coffee-
ing tables of twelve types of coffees. Although the crop
from the Panama Geisha were not developed enough to
be tasted, we were fortunate enough to have tasted the
first harvest of the lemon-coffee hybrid tree. During the
coffeeing, we realized that the Brazilian coffees had an
acidity and flavor on par with those of its African coun-
terparts. The coffeeing was a great opportunity to break
stereotypes of Brazilian coffees.
People, Business, and Coffee
The influence of O’Coffee in Brazil was enor-
mous. We realized this fact when we visited four cafes
in the urban Sao Paulo area. Every one of these cafes
had contracts with O’Coffee or had personal associa-
tions to Thabata, the manager of an O’Coffee-affiliated
café, Octavio. It was difficult for us to not find a trace
of O’Coffee in places related to Brazilian coffee, helping
us realize that O’Coffee was at the center of the coffee
industry in Brazil. However, the surprising part is that
despite the enormity of O’Coffee, the relationship it had
with the small cafes we visited was not that of a cold
business nature, but of a more personal one. We saw
how this friendly business method was formed from
the birthday party of the Edgarde, the CEO of O’Coffee.
Efforts for Quality Assurance and Environmental To celebrate his birthday, employees, along with their
Conservation families, filmed messages congratulating the CEO, and
Energy and effort are invested in standard- Edgarde shed tears of gratitude. And during our tour of
izing the quality of the coffee harvested and sold from the farm, he introduced every employee we passed by,
O’Coffee; foreign matters are filtered multiple times calling them by their names and chatting with them, as
between each step of the process, while delicate equip- if they were his family.
ment, such as a chromameter and a density classifier are It may seem that all coffee farms in Brazil are
used to weed out the bad crop. In addition, the method pretty much the same; unless a farm has an independent
of processing these impurities is eco-friendly. For ex- method of processing the coffee, the farms in Brazil have
ample, the high level of potassium produced during the similar ways of producing coffee. However, what we saw
wet-processing of the coffee are treated with minimal during our trip was that O’Coffee’s methods of growing
amount of chemical agents and used as fertilizer for the coffee are different. Not only did we learn about new
banana farms managed by O’Coffee. The tree branches types of Brazilian coffee, but ways of building good cof-
and leaves discarded during the harvest are collected and fee business.
used to power the dryers. O’Coffee farm is associated
with the Rainforest Alliance and makes enormous ef-
forts for the conservation of the ecosystem. One example
of this is the use of chicken excrements to fertilize the
plants over chemical fertilizers. In addition, once a year,
pesticide is applied directly onto the plants through the
rubber pipes placed underground to water the trees,
which is managed by a computer system.

Coffee of the Producer
Other than unique blends O’Coffee has cre-
ated, it seemed that the farm also puts a lot of effort in
development of new species and processing methods to
enhance the taste and aroma. After a day of seeing coffee
trees twice the size of our heights, our guide offered to
show us something new. After walking along a winding
road uphill for about 10 minutes, we were able to see
44