Long Beach, California 2007 SCAA Convention

The show was first week in May, and I called in March 2007!! She laughed at me and said everything was sold out.  If something came up she would call me. Last week in March I got a call saying they had a booth available did I want it. I said yes and here we go. I had less than a month to come up with a logo, a banner, buy and Espresso machine, make business cards, brochures, coffee cup etc. At that point, Sergio was just starting the harvest and we did not know if we had any coffee good enough to be consider special in any way.  Two weeks before the show, he called me and said the coffee got an 88 cupping, perfect! I got on the plane to California with a 30 lb excess weight luggage.  I wanted to carry everything with me. I was afraid the luggage would get lost.   The day of the set up came, we went to the convention center, unpack the Espresso machine and just looked at each other.....We had no idea how to set up the machine, much less how to make an espresso. The booth turned out beautiful and very elegant ( Sergio's touch!!!) but we could not make the coffee.  Thanks again to  the universe, the manufactures of Rancilio Coffee Machines were at the show and we had an "Espresso for Idiots" quick  lesson which worked for those few days.( I have taken a real Barista class after that) Pretty soon we were distributing coffee to people and they all loved our coffee. It was great to know that the small roaster were so happy to be talking to the farm itself, rather than going thru major distributors. We made  lots of contacts. One of the big roasters approached us and asked if they could visit the farm in July. We said of course and that Sergio was going to put together a whole trip to include several coffee regions in Brazil.  I was totally excited with the outcome and the trip. It would be a way for me to learn everything about growing coffee!!I Came back to New York sure that this is what I wanted to do. Get into a whole new area. There  was so much for me to learn. I bought several books and dvd so that at least I knew what questions to ask about coffee !!! This was my first step into the coffee world!!

From Victoria's Secret to Coffee Secrets

I have been a top executive for  the apparel industry for most of my life. I worked for brands such as Levi's, Express, Victoria's Secret Direct, Ann Taylor so on and so forth. I was traveling 80% of time, did not have a life, and became a problem solver. The fun of learning new things and meeting new people was gone. Most of my time was spent in meetings deciding the same thing over and over.  I was at the top when I realized there is more to life than being a corporate executive, titles and achievements did not mean a lot to me anymore. I was tired all the time, my mind could not stop. So I decided I did not want to do this anymore, this was not who I was. I was not my job, I was not my titles, but who was I???I think I spent a good year trying to figure this out . The problem with this is that at my age, I was used to a certain lifestyle and that had to change, drastically. On top of that I had to make a living and what could I do that would combine making some money with still having a life and doing the things that are now so important to me.

I was in Virginia with my cousin Sergio, who has a coffee farm in Petropolis, Rio de Janeiro.  He noticed how worried I was and said that what he could do to help me was to give me his coffee to sell in the USA.  This was February 2007. He told me,  there would a Specialty Coffee Association Convention in Long Beach, CA, why dont I try and get a booth???So I did....

Joy Brazil Coffee and how we found our roaster!

Most of  my life, I trusted the power of the universe. Sometimes I doubt it, just to be proven wrong in the the next minute.  The whole idea of My Brazilian Coffee was a sequence of coincidences that made me a greater believer that things are the way they need to be, and things happen when they need to happen.  This was an amazing one: I went to Virginia, Gordonsville,  to my cousin's farm for Thanksgiving 2007.   The farm is beautiful and very peacefull. I invited several friends to the weekend, and one of them was flying to Charlottesville. (The reason I am  telling all the details, is so that you have an idea of the sequence of events in order for something to happen the way it should).  Kasey's flight was late out of New York, so she missed the connection in North Carolina. She rented a car and drove 12 hours to get to Gordonsville. Next day, Trish and I went to return the car and after that we were going to meet everyone at the James Madison house for a tour.  When we arrived at the house, I found  out that Polly was not feeling well and did not come, so I decided to go home and check on her. Got there, she was feeling better and did not want to go to the James Madison home tour. Instead, she wanted to buy a flapper for the downstairs bath room that was always running.  We drove to the Gordonsville post office and asked where could we find a Houseware store.  The woman told us to drive to James Madison highway, there would be a big sign of the Houseware store.  Off we went, got the store and it seemed closed. It was the day after Thanksgiving.  We kept walking around trying to find the entrance, when suddenly a little door opened. This man came out and asked if he could help us???We said we were looking for a toilette flapper! He then looked at us and said: I am sorry I cannot help, I am a coffee roaster!!!! Do I need to finish the story!!!

Why MyBrazilianCoffee.com

I have been living in America for the past 20 years.  Even with all the boom in the gourmet coffee industry, I was never able to go to a Starbucks, a Dunkin Donuts and ask for a Brazilian Coffee,  I could have Colombian, Ethiopia, Jamaican, Kona etc etc. But never Brazilian. Trying to buy Brazilian Gourmet Coffee was the same experience. I went to several "Gourmet Markets" in New York and there was never Brazilian Gourmet Coffee. I could find "Brazil Santos" , but for me "Brazil Santos" is a commodity coffee that is shipped out of the Santos Port in Brazil.  Brazil is the largest coffee producer in the world. At least 10% of the whole production is considered Gourmet, so if Brazil produced 37.5 million bags of coffee in 2007, there are at least 3.75 million bags of Gourmet Coffee coming from there. Where is this coffee???who is drinking it??( each bag of coffee is 60 kg or 132 lb) 

Organic Controversy

The organic word is in everyone's mouth nowadays; from coffee to produce to fish to meat to everything. Coffee plantations take a lot from the soil.  After years of harvesting without replenishing the land, it must rest for years before you can use it again.  The coffee  trees don't get any help, so the coffee, even though it is hand picked, does not look the best.  The trees are usually shade grown.  Productivity is very low compared to other ways of growing coffee. I guess my thought about  is if it is really a good thing.  Does it really taste better? it is worth the price? I am all for respecting  environment, but I do ask myself if organic grown coffee is really helping the earth????

Welcome to Brazil Blends!!!

Being raised in Brazil, coffee was always part of my daily life.

Not until recently though I started to learn all the nuances about this so intriguing grain, that needs a special climate, an especial location and can replicate in so many different forms and species.

Coffee was originally discovered in Ethiopia around 575; the story goes that a priest was looking at a goat, and noticed how energetic the goat would become, after eating that fruit, he then took the fruit to the monastery. There he thought that the taste of the fruit was too bitter so he roasted it. The aroma he felt was exhilarating.

Café was brought to Brazil on the XVIII century. The story goes that governor of a province in Brazil asked that a major in the army bring some seeds to the country. The major went to an expedition in the French Guyana and there, he got the seeds.

Brazil is today the largest producer of coffee and the second consumer market, behind only the USA.

Coffee comes in 2 species, “Robusta” and “Arabica”. The Robusta species is the cheap one. Brands usually mix it in the blends so that coffee can be more affordable to the masses. The Arabica coffee is what we call the specialty coffee. (Not all Arabica is specialty).

Within the Arabica species, we have several types of grains, which make coffee so unique.

Depending on the region where it is grown the coffee tastes differently, Compared to wine, coffee taste and aroma changes with the region, the climate and the altitude of where is grown.

The harvesting is also different depending on the country. So for example a Sumatra coffee in May be able to taste better than a Sumatra coffee in November, depending when the harvest was done.

In August one may be better of drinking Brazil coffee rather than Colombia coffee…there is so many variations to coffee that only now people are beginning to get educate on what a good cup of coffee should be.

In order to better develop the specialty coffee market, the Cup of Excellence award was created. The Cup of excellence takes place in each coffee producer country, where judges from all over the world volunteer their time and their money to travel and cup the coffees.

Those coffees are given a grade and after that the better ones receive the cup of excellence award; they then receive a logo that can be used on their packaging.

This coffee can be sold by the farm by values that goes up to $1,000.00 a 60kg bag, and is consider the Chateneaef Du Pape of coffees.

The development of the specialty coffee market is having a positive effect in the way coffee is grown, the farm is taken care and most important, making sure the small farmers have the opportunity to profit from the care they have during their harvest.


All of what is called specialty coffee must be free of defect and receives a grade of 80 or higher during cupping.

As this market evolves, more and more people will be looking for the difference in the coffee they drink, making sure that this continues to be a market in expansion.