João Hamilton

Our first Brazilian single origin offering in quite some time is a familiar face that’s been working with the team at Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza (FAF) for two decades. This is our second time purchasing from João Hamilton, the passionate leader of FAF’s producer network in the Caconde region. 

We’ve been working over the past few seasons to continue digging deeper with our purchasing model here and focus on building relationships with single producers.  Time and time again, coffees from João’s farm, Sítio Canaã, have been some of our favorites on the cupping table. 

From João: 

We produce coffee on our 10 hectare farm at an altitude that ranges from 1200 to 1340 meters above sea level. The varieties we produce are Catuai, Mundo Novo, Sumatra, and Bourbon. Our production was traditionally commodity and our goal was always to produce as much quantity as possible while using various agro-toxic chemicals. We did not respect Mother Nature nor the quality of the coffee. In recent years this system of commodity coffee has ceased to be sustainable for us.

In 2006, Marcos from Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza invited our family [João and his brother Ivan] to take part in a new sustainable method in producing coffee. The objective became to achieve the highest quality while simultaneously respecting nature, reforesting the area around our springs, recycling our trash, refraining from utilizing toxic fertilizers and herbicides giving the practice of cultivating coffee a new inspiration and hope.

Our family adopted new processes in order to improve the quality of our coffee. We began to harvest selectively for the ripest cherries, to do semi-washed pulped cherries, and worked with more carefulness on the drying patio. The new partnership between the Joao Hamilton and Ivan family with Marcos (FAF) is allowing for dreams and hopes to be realized. 

João Hamilton’s respect for nature, selective cherry picking, and acute attention to detail in the natural drying process, results in some of the cleanest and sweetest coffees in all of Brazil. Big red fruit flavors pair harmoniously with a creamy body and notes of almond and nougat. Huge PB&J vibes. We’re tasting: grape jam, cooked cherry, vanilla, nougat, brown sugar, almond butter, chocolate candy bar.