Brazil: Sítio Belém

This is the classic Brazil flavours of milk chocolate and roasted hazelnuts when it's hot, but as it begins to cool there's soft, creamy peach yoghurt flavour which grows to fill the cup.

This one's a first for us – a brand new relationship, and one we're genuinely excited about.

We came across Sítio Belém through the Matura Project, a pioneering initiative launched in 2024 by Bourbon Specialty Coffees to champion female producers across Brazil. We know Bourbon's work well – they're behind our flagship Brazilian coffees at Cachoeira, Inglaterra, and Barreiro – so when they put something in front of us, we pay attention. We tried a handful of coffees from the participating farms, and this one stopped us in our tracks.

The Matura Project is open to farms owned by women, with women in management, and with women overseeing selection and post-harvest production. It's more than a label – it comes with a full programme of support: post-harvest and fermentation training, technical farm visits, microlot selection guidance, cupping and sensory sessions, and dedicated promotion to connect producers with new markets. The goal is to create a genuine collaborative network where women producers can share knowledge, innovate, and gain the recognition they deserve.

The story of Sítio Belém reaches back further than you might expect. The region of Campestre, in the south of Minas Gerais, saw its very first road built in 1762 – and from those early days, a handful of pioneering families began working the land. By 1859, Dulce Souza's great-great-grandfather had founded Fazenda Mato Dentro here, beginning a family legacy that has never stopped growing. In 1878, the first coffee trees were planted at what became Fazenda Pinhal do Campestre – a year that also marked the birth of Dulce's grandmother. From these two intertwined events came the family's brand name: 1878.

The family continued to expand through the generations. In 1891, a second estate – Fazenda Pinhal – brought running water, telephones, and machinery to the family for the first time. Dulce's grandfather planted a further 160,000 coffee trees. Getting the coffee to market was no small feat back then – three ox-cart routes to Poços de Caldas, until the welcome arrival of a Dodge truck made the same journey possible in a single day.

Sítio Belém itself was founded in 1990 by Dulce and her husband Ablandino. The name is drawn from the Hebrew Bethlehem – "House of Bread" – which feels fitting for a farm that has nurtured and sustained a family across generations. It's a relatively compact 20 hectares by Brazilian standards, sitting at 1,100–1,200 metres above sea level and parcelled from the family's older holdings. Alongside the Yellow Catucaí we're featuring here, the farm grows Mundo Novo, Arara, Geisha, Paraíso, Rubi, and several others.

The Yellow Catucaí variety itself is a Brazilian-bred cross between Icatu and Catuaí, developed specifically for high productivity, vigorous growth, and robust resistance to coffee leaf rust – traits that make it particularly well-suited to the demands of quality-focused smallholder farming. In the cup, it tends towards rich sweetness and a well-rounded body, which the natural process here only amplifies.

Dulce puts it better than we could: "We treat this piece of land as something almost sacred, God's creation and a legacy from our parents to us. We respect nature and the people involved in our activity, from production to the consumer."

It's that kind of care that makes this coffee what it is. We can't wait to share it with you.

• Country: Brazil
• State: Minas Gerais
• Region: Campestre
• Producer: Dulce Souza
• Coffee growing area: 20 hectares
• Elevation: 1,100 – 1,200 m.a.s.l
• Variety: Yellow Catucai
• Processing method: Natural
• Other varieties grown: Mundo Novo, Arara, Rubi, Geisha, Paraíso, and Catiguá
• Harvest months: June to September

Cupping notes: Milk chocolate, roasted hazelnut, peach yoghurt.

Cup of Excellence Cupping Scores

• Clean Cup: 6/8
• Sweetness: 6.5/8
• Acidity: 6/8
• Mouthfeel: 6/8
• Flavour: 7/8
• Aftertaste: 6/8
• Balance: 6.5/8
• Overall: 6.5/8
  
• Correction: +36
• Total: 86.5/100

If you would like to find out more about how we score coffees, make sure to read our blog post "What Do Coffee Cuppings Scores Actually Mean?" by clicking here.

Medium to Medium Dark
We take this one on a steady, measured push - consistent in pace, not rushed. It's a medium to medium-dark profile, and we're looking for the very end of the gap just before second crack begins. That's the sweet spot for this coffee - far enough to fully develop the natural sweetness the process has built up, without tipping into territory that would mask its more delicate character as it cools.