Page 92 - #62 eng e-mag

c Origin

Lucas Venturim and his brother
Isaac run the family business
with their father in Café
Fazenda Venturim.

December. To encourage the development
The Birth of New Coffee
of different varieties of coffee, Brazilian
Varieties government sets up a special contest called
Bourbon Speciality Coffee Contest which
In general, it is rare to see the birth is held annually in December, targeting the
of new varieties in one community be- late-maturing coffees, that missed COE and
cause the soil and similar environment Coffee of the Year. This farm is last year’s
make quality (high/low) of beans the champion of the contest.
same. However, through developing
technical methods, for example, the dif- Female Empowerment
ferent ways of protection and growth can
be discovered, like lowering the branch- Keeping up with the world, there
es and leaves of Robusta coffee trees, are also few females participating in cof-
breaking the micro climate and introduc- fee contests. The number of female par-
ing more air around the roots of a tree, ticipants is much lower than males’. In
or different ways of processing, like this year’s COE, there are only six
adding extra yeast to help ferment more women in the jury out of 16 judges and
flavors and so on. Several years later, the 11 observers. One of the reasons behind,
difference becomes more and more obvi- said by the COE president, Susie, is that
ous. After scored as high quality, the there is a sensory gap in between women
owner will consider to apply for a new and men. Women are more sensitive to
name for the variety. At that time, the bitterness than men, it is bad to the ac-
new variety is born. In addition, the curacy of cupping result. On the other
climate and altitude will influent the hand, it is a social prejudice that does not
micro climate of the farm, it will further support their competition with men on
affect the maturing of coffee beans. For the same stage. What surprised us this
instance, the picking time of beans in time is that we met a female coffee as-
Sitio Alto Rancho Dantas farm is every sociation GMEVP (Grupo de Mulheres

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