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Located in the Municipality of São Sebastião da Grama - State of São Paulo, which has become a reference for high quality coffees classified at coffee contests (see prior results of the Cup of Excellence Award), Fazenda Recreio has excellent soil, climate and altitude (1200 meters) and location.
The farm belongs to the Carvalho Dias family since 1890, and it picked its 110th harvest this year. Currently, it belongs to Agronomist Joaquim José de Carvalho Dias, 85 years old, who has been managing the property since 1945. He is assisted by his grandson, Agronomist Diogo Dias Teixeira de Macedo - 5th generation of the family working at the farm.
All plantation upkeep is performed manually, because of the property's rough topography. The farm has 68 houses for its employees and their families, school, community health clinic, chapel, soccer field and the headquarters building; all houses have potable water and sewage. Employees are registered according to Brazilian labor laws, and in addition to their regular salaries, receive monthly food staples.
The Carvalho Dias family is also concerned with soil conservation, where contour lines planting techniques, annual soil analysis, liming, organic fertilization, mineral fertilization, clearing and rotation by planting leguminous vegetables. They are always concerned about adding organic matter to the soil.
Coffee processing system
Harvesting is performed manually on cloth, begins in mid-May, when the coffee trees have a high percentage of ripe beans, and ends in October. The farm uses the pulped natural method, in which the harvested coffee is washed, pulped and spread on terraces on the same day, and stay on the terrace until it is semi-dried, when it is transferred to the dryer.
This year, since the harvest was small, it was not necessary to use a dryer. The coffee was totally dried on the terrace. After drying, it was transferred to bins, where it stayed for 30 days, for homogenization of the beans humidity.
Concern with quality
Beans were processed and sent to the Cooperativa Regional dos Cafeicultores de Poços de Caldas, where they were re-processed and stored in a controlled environment. Always concerned with maintaining the original characteristics of the beans, the whole process is controlled and noted down, from harvesting until they are sent to the warehouses.
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