Trip to Brasil, Sao Paulo, Comexim, Bourbon Specialty Coffee & Santa Terezihna Organic Farm
By Rob McGregor
| Apr. 25, 2011
June 2007 was the year that I decided that I would visit the coffee harvest in Brasil I had been interested in seeing and filming the methods that were being used as the Brazilian bean had long been my favourite coffee. Accompanying me was friend and long time coffee roaster Craig Miller. He had also wanted to visit the biggest producing nation in the world.
We landed in Sao Paulo and spent a few days visiting the local caf scene, including the well known roaster Santo Grao, (portuguese for "Holy Bean") which is owned by a New Zealander. We were both impressed at his operation, especially the 8 Mazzer grinders that enabled the coffee drinker to choose from a number of regions around Brasil.
Our next part of the journey was renting a car for the rest of the trip, which saw us driving to the port of Santos which is one of the major shipping ports for coffee in Brasil. Over a couple of days we visited the Comexim Coffee exporting offices & sat down to cup a number of Brazil coffees with Marcio the owner and also where we met John Wolters. This man is a surfing legend who is also the chief exporter for Comexim, and hails from Denmark originally. He said the Danes were good traders because of their ability to speak many languages. We visited the coffee museum housed in the original coffee exchange, which was located in Santos and also walked around the streets where most of the coffee trading is done in Brasil (billions of dollars).
