Brazil Origin Trip - Meet the Cafe Delas Producers
All Café Delas coffees come with a story. Over 100 women producers across Latin America have had their stories changed by the resources provided by the Café Delas program. Café Delas producers have accounted for 70,000 bags of coffee across all regions since the start of the program. We got to experience those stories firsthand on a recent origin trip to Brazil, the birthplace of Café Delas in 2018.
On the weeklong trip, traders Ana Mallozzi and Brittany Amell along with Sam Supsky from marketing traveled from Sao Paolo to Sao Sebastiao do Paraiso and Pinhal, visiting several producers of Café Delas coffee and one aspiring Café Delas producer. All of these farms had many differences, but one thing rings true for all producers: despite adversity, coffee production is their life, and they love what they do.
We began in Sao Sebastiao do Paraiso, where we visited two farms with owners that exemplify the spirit of the Café Delas program. Guida De Oliveira Ribeiro owns Sitio Santo Antonio, where we were greeted by a smiling Guida and her dogs. Immediately, her passion was infectious. She took us to see her “baby coffee” which she and her sister have worked to plant. Guida is a widow and tends to her farm completely on her own with the occasional help from her daughter. After her husband passed away, Guida’s family wanted her to leave the farm and move closer to them since she was alone with her young daughter, but she refused. Eventually, her family bought land near the farm so they could be close to Guida and the 20,000 coffee trees she had planted. Since Guida is doing just about everything herself, she uses a trusty machine called “little hands” to pick coffee off the trees until she can afford her own harvester.
Guida Ribiero
Guida shared that due to lack of rain and higher temperatures, her yields have been smaller than previous years. With the help of the Café Delas program, Guida has been recovering from a bad frost she experienced about 4 years ago. Despite these setbacks, Guida has been able to maintain her production, even earning “Top Lot” status on one of her lots we have available to buy on the Covoya site.
The next day, Roselaine Aparecida Souza Dizaro and her cousin Ediana Alice Sousa were in the middle of cherry-picking when we arrived. Ediana has her own farm and was there to help with harvesting. Only gloves were used to strip the branches, allowing cherries and leaves to fall on a long burlap cloth underneath the trees. Once this process was completed, they would begin to pull the cloth and sift for ripe cherries and remove as much foreign matter as they could before bagging the cherries. This process was completely manual and would be done on all 9ha of land, home to about 20,000 coffee trees, showcasing how much work goes into daily operations. Like on Guida’s farm, this farm is a labor of love that gets the whole family involved if needed.
Roselaine Aparecida Souza Dizaró and Ediana Alice Sousa
Many times, we learned, when women like Roselaine, Ediana or Guida inquire about equipment or support for their harvest, they would not be taken seriously by their male counterparts. Café Delas teaches best practices for doing things manually and helps connect producers to each other so they can form a network of support.
Next, we visited Fazenda Sete Lagoas in Minas Gerais, a farm that Maria Tereza Rochetti inherited from her family, despite knowing nothing about coffee. Maria and her husband were city-dwellers when they decided to move to the farm. Everything they know about coffee production is from the Café Delas program. Inspired by all they learned from Café Delas, Maria’s husband has even become a certified Q Grader and plans to teach courses to other producers so they can truly understand the quality of their production. This farm sits at 1200m and grows Mundo Novo and Catuai varieties, they produce about 300-400 bags per harvest and have specialized Pinhalense equipment to wash the cherries. The coffee dries on their patio where it is turned/raked about 8 times per day to ensure even drying. We finished the day here and watched the sunset over the coffee trees as we drove away.
Maria Tereza Rochetti and Camila de Assis from ofi Brazil
When we arrived at Carla Giacchero’s farm, Fazenda Santo Antonio da Esperança, the next day, the sound of machinery whirring and the smell of drying pulp filled the air. Carla, in her Café Delas t-shirt, and her family welcomed our group and immediately took us to the patio where coffee is dried and rested, we were lucky to catch some workers on a machine that washes and separates foreign materials from the coffee. Our tour determined that Carla’s operation has it all: large drying patios, compost/chaff recycling, machinery for washing cherries, silos for mechanical drying, irrigation systems, a density sorter, and even a beautiful rose garden. None of this came easily to Carla, who came to Brazil in a time when Italians were migrating to Brazil for coffee-picking jobs. She worked to send her son to school in the city, where he became an Agronomist and Environmental Engineer. His education plus the workshops and resources the Café Delas program provided have helped Carla develop her farm, even earning a Rainforest Alliance Certificate for her hard work.
Carla and Joao Giacchero
Finally, we stopped at Sitio Tapir, operated by Dalila Vasconcelos Dos Santos who also has Italian lineage. Dalila originally found the Café Delas program when she was seeking help for a broca infestation. Through the program, she received an organic solution which has been promising, as she has seen improvement after incorporating the solution into her soil management process. Dalila, with the help of her mother and husband, is working to slowly re-plant sections of the farm with new trees. Some of her older plots do not allow for mechanical pickers to pass through, and they are being replanted to allow space. Some of the farm will remain and picking will be done manually, but the new space will allow for more efficiency during peak harvest time.
Dalila Vasconcelos Dos Santos
Dalila’s crop is not the only thing that has improved since starting Café Delas. Dalila has had many guests over the years to visit her farm, but she always felt shy and unable to communicate. Through professional development resources offered by the Cafe Delas program, Dalila worked on her communication skills, empowering her and giving her the confidence to engage with guests just like us. She was a fantastic host and her farm was a great last stop before heading to Espírito Santo do Pinhal where we would finish our trip.
Our final stop in was at Sitio Grumello where we enjoyed a breakfast spread overlooking the city with coffee freshly prepared by Camila using a V60. Camila Parmezani Latarini owns this farm where she produces coffee and grapes for wine. Camila is an aspiring Café Delas producer who is currently part of the training program. While she is not new to coffee farming, Camila is managing her paperwork so that her name is on all bills and statements, one of the criteria for selling Café Delas coffees. For many years, Camila has been roasting and selling her coffees under her own brand to much success, soon enough we hope to have her coffee available to our roasters in the US.
Camila Parmezani Latarini
Throughout the trip, each producer had their own reasons for seeking out the Café Delas program and all of them found the support they needed and opened a world of opportunities to hone the craft they love. Café Delas coffee is sold at a $0.05/lb premium which goes directly into the producers’s pocket as well as funding producer workshops, quality trainings, events and more. Maybe your investment helps Guida get her harvester, Roselaine’s new equipment, Carla’s certification, or Dalila’s pest control, or helps Camila take her farm to the next level. Seeing the impact of Café Delas for ourselves was an incredible experience that we can’t wait to share with our Covoya customers. Stay tuned for more information about the 2025 Café Delas Origin Trip and other ways to support women producers in Latin America.
