Green Coffee

Fazenda Sertão is an 850-hectare farm with 330 hectares planted in coffee trees of several varieties, including Red and Yellow Bourbon, Yellow Catucai, and Yellow Catuai. The farm also grows bananas and corn and is used to raise dairy livestock. This farm has a love story behind it: Among the first generation of coffee growers in this area was Jose Isidro Pereira, a dentist-turned-coffee producer who inherited Fazenda Sertão from his mother when she passed away—an incident that ended his dentistry career but put him on a path to coffee farming. In 1949, Jose Isidro met the “love of his life,” Nazareth, who continues to run the farm her husband left in her care. Nazareth and Jose Isidro’s children—Francisco, Luiz Paulo, Clycia, and Sandra—are also coffee producers, carrying on the family tradition.

Tasting Notes: Nutty with mild fruit and graham flavors and some acidity.

Region: Carmo de Minas, Minas Gerais

Altitude: 1100 to 1400 masl

Processing: Natural

Varietal: Regional Blend

Changes in the Ethiopian export rules have opened new opportunities to develop relationships with vertically integrated suppliers. Royal has seized on the opportunity to work directly with BNT Industry and Trading PLC, which owns and operates a 2500 acre estate Mizan Gisha Coffee Farm in Bench Sheko, formally known as the Bench Maji zone, in Ethiopia’s far southwest. The zone has a reputation for stability and predictable cup profiles. In 2021, a successful referendum established a new, separate region comprising Bench Maji and a few surrounding zones, and is now called Bench Sheko. But the “Bench Maji” image and reputation still persists in the coffee world.

Tasting Notes: Hibiscus, raisin, toffee, pine, candy-sweet

Region: Ojemta, Guraferda woreda, Benchshako zone, South Nation Nationality Peoples’ Region

Altitude: 960 – 1,100 M

Processing: Washed

Varietal: Local landraces and indigenous heirloom cultivars