Brazil Ipanema Premier Cru C26 Natural

Arrived May 2023, newest crop.  We bought several coffees from Ipanema Coffees this year.  They have several price bands that are broken into three "editions" with the best price-to-value equation offered in the Black Edition which  includes this offering.  They also produce very small, specialized microlots, one of which we recently carried as a Serious Select coffee and it was from Ipanema's most expensive Blue Edition. 

As noted, this is one of several boutique lots "designed" for particular flavor leanings. Ipanema Coffee produces coffee cherry at their Fazenda Rio Verde and they take an innovative approach to produce high score coffees. The farm encompasses 900 total hectares of preservation areas in the Mantiqueira Mountains. They are developing a new model of harvesting, processing and drying in fresh constructed, one-of-a-kind milling facility offering several profiles with diverse flavor notes. There are 34 separate parcels with different altitudes and sun faces, selective hand-picking harvest models and five preparation methods combined with several drying possibilities for tailor-made solutions.

When the coffee cherries are fully ripe they are harvested and then spend a period of some days to reduce their moisture - this is the first drying phase of the process.  The partially dry cherries are then placed into tanks, either plastic or stainless, and completely sealed so they have no air.  This is the anaerobic part where the cherries, in the airtight container, in essence stew in some of their own juices, though the amount of juice has been reduced by the previous step.  After spending, in this case, 40 hours in the tank, the fermented cherries are removed and spread out on raised beds to dry in the sun and air for the next 15 days, being turned frequently each day.  The amount of fruitiness is quite mild in this selection because the cherries were allowed to dry before going into the tank.  Had they gone directly into the anaerobic environment after harvesting they would be sitting in their own juices much more and be more intensely fruit flavored. 

Rainforest Alliance Certified.