Sourcing details Minas Gerais is the largest of the three major Brazilian growing regions with six micro-regions, which account for 50 percent of Brazil’s production.
From this volume of coffee, we have plucked a special treat traceable to a single estate in Sul de Minas, which is known for its rolling hills and uneven terrain lending to farms that are small to medium in size.
Luiz Paulo Dias Pereira Filho has a 300 acre estate called Santuário Sul in the Carmo micro region.
The estate was established in 2015 and has 150 acres planted with over 30 different varieties including Geisha. Different plots are controlled with different farm management practices to bring out the best from each variety.
The quality has been recognized with top finishes in the Cup of Excellence and the Carmo Best of Cup. Processing While Santuário Sul’s driving focus is on differentiating plant variety and creating farm management innovations, the post harvest processing is taken to a neighboring estate called Sisters Pereira, where there is decades of processing knowhow.
Luis is careful to selectively pick and deliver ripe cherries to the mill where this Sudan Rume is washed and floated to remove damaged and less dense seeds before the drying process begins.
Cherries are gently dried on raised beds to reduce moisture to 11 percent and then carefully stored until it is time for milling and export. Exporting details Luis works with an exporting company called Carmo Coffee, which helps with many of the logistics of selling to the international market, like warehousing and preparing coffee for export.
Carmo Coffee also takes on a role to have a social impact with a program called Cria Carmo, which funds educational opportunities for children between 7 and 17 years old in the Carmo region.
Taste Analysis by Isabella Vitaliano
Some of my favorite coffees to come through this building are from Brazil. Often, we have sourced from Luiz Paulo, who breaks boundaries and expectations for Brazilian Coffee. Microlots of this size are hard to source but on his farm, he focuses not only on single lots but also a curated selection of cultivar-specific lots. Farms in Brazil are often massive and are called estates, which signifies there is a washing station and dry mill on the premises to process on site. Coffee is often blended into large lots and sold by the container, so at times it can be difficult to navigate consolidation with these smaller lots. Royal was lucky to get our hands on this cultivar selection, which is a Gesha selection. Obviously, this is a very iconic taste profile. Mixed with its Brazilian roots, it takes on a whole new expression of soft herbal, dried citrus and sweet cooked oats. It is soft, with notes like green figs, coriander seeds, calendula tea, and buttery croissant. Texturally this coffee is so creamy, and the flavor notes of oatmeal and wheatberry create the canvas for those softer notes to come through. We found this coffee improves immensely when rested. From the Southern portion of the country, Carmo de Minas, to the Santos Port in Sao Paulo, all the way to our warehouse in California and eventually your roastery… this coffee has come so far to help you discover a new taste of Brazil and a new taste of Gesha as well.Source Analysis by Chris Kornman
Luiz Paulo Dias Pereira Filho is an undeniable creative genius and a force to be reckoned with in the coffee world. A Fifteen-year Relationship, Rekindled I first met Luiz Paulo in 2011, buying his family’s coffee for Intelligentsia. The son of a coffee farmer, with a legacy of award-winning cattle and coffee, like so many stories, Luiz’s comes down to a confluence of the right place, the right time, a little luck, and a lot of hard work. For a few years I was the firsthand witness to the ascent of his export brand, Carmo Coffees, from a humble but delicious source of coffee that helped me shed the preconceptions I’d often heard repeated about Brazilian coffees (that they lack quality and consistency, that they’re mass-produced, that they’re not specialty) to a world-renowned purveyor of the country’s finest. Luiz and I grew together during those formative years, learning about importing and exporting, contract approvals, and using growth and scale to invest further in quality and innovation. I fondly remember visiting his parent’s farmhouse and celebrating our rising stars over a cafezinho, brewed by hand in one of those pour-over cloth filters, and paired with guava jelly and farm cheese and piping hot fried cornbread broas dripping with butter. In the years since moving to California and joining Royal I’d admittedly taken a break from buying his coffee. But as it happened, we bumped into each other at the SCA Expo in Boston in April of 2022. He shared a cup of Starmaya cultivar from his Santuário Sul project with me, and I spent the entire rest of the year obsessing over it. I’ve been chasing that high ever since. Santuário Sul and the Gesha Tree Santuário Sul is a special slice of earth, self-described by Pereira as “obstinate” and “ahead of market trends.” It is Luiz Paulo’s variety garden and experimental farm, a 300-acre tract with 30 cultivated varieties of coffee and a legacy as Cup of Excellence and Carmo Best Cup winner. The estate is located in Carmo de Minas (for which the export company is named), a small town Luiz and his family are responsible for having practically put on the map—at least as far as the specialty coffee buyer is concerned. This year we were offered a Gesha cultivar from Luiz Paulo’s farm. While botanists selected Gesha trees from western Ethiopia’s forests nearly a century ago, 2026 separates us by more than two decades from its first appearance at a quality competition, 2004’s Best of Panama. In the 20+ years since, the cultivar has gained worldwide notoriety and has been planted in nearly every arabica-producing nation. Gesha’s ongoing quest for relevance—in a sea of unconventional processing methods and ongoing discovery and development of new cultivars (like Sidra, Pink Borbon, et al)— has often pushed it into new territories of flavor and (in part) due to increased supply, reduced its value from such meteoric heights as it still occasionally enjoys at auction. By contrast, this coffee’s flavors reflect a refined elegance, restraint, and simplicity, belying its undeniable luxury. It is a delicate indulgence, one which celebrates the improbable and ornate qualities, guided by careful hands and blessed with the advantages of good soil and weather and heirloom tree types, that reverberate echoes of a better possibility—one in which specialty coffees achieve recognizable value throughout an entire convoluted supply chain, and one in which we can equitably share in both pleasure and profit. Carmo de Minas and the Mantiqueira Range For the past 15 years, the word Carmo has become synonymous with quality. Part of this has undoubtedly to do with the region’s naturally ideal environment. Carmo de Minas is located in the Serra da Mantiqueira mountain range, peaks spanning from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro, and the slopes that fall within the borders of the vast bread-basket state of Minas Gerais are known under an “Indication of Origin” as the “Mantiqueira de Minas.” The region is the epicenter of some of Brazil’s most exceptional coffees and award-winning coffee farms. The word Mantiqueira is derived from a Tupi phrase meaning “crying mountains.” The range is rife with natural springs, including Carmo’s neighboring city of São Lourenço, where the water bursts forth from the earth, mineral-rich and effervescent. The abundance of fresh water in the region is uncommon in many Brazilian production zones, and combined with distinctive elevations, terrain unsuitable for mechanical harvesting, and smaller-than-average estates, the perfect ingredients exist in Carmo de Minas for exceptional coffees. Washing & UV Drying Perfect ingredients still require precise techniques, however, and these have been honed by Luiz Paulo, his family, and Carmo Coffees, over the years. At the risk of having buried the lede, this is a very uniquely processed coffee. When speaking of Brazilian coffees, the phrase “washed” is almost never uttered. Factors like available water and dependence on technologies that create large quantities of natural and honey-processed (often called “pulped naturals” when sourced from Brazil) are cited for the extreme rarity of washed coffees. However, Luiz Paulo has shown it is possible, with this coffee submitted as proof. The Gesha cherries were depulped after harvesting and then fermented for 36 hours in a water tank. Thereafter, the coffees were dried under ultraviolet lights in a greenhouse. Luiz Paulo has been experimenting with this drying technique since at least 2022. While UV lights have sometimes been employed in QC labs to identify physical defects, there’s also evidence that UV light can reduce microbial activity and extend shelf life in certain circumstances, a benefit Luiz Paulo believes is extended to coffee during the drying process. The result is an uncommonly clean and refreshing coffee, with delicate floral and fruit character whose simple pleasure in the cup quietly belies the complexity of its production and provenance.Green Analysis by Isabella Vitaliano
Density is well below average with slightly higher moisture content and water activity. 83% of the screen size sits between 17-15, which is what we would expect from a Gesha as they are slightly larger beans. With a higher moisture content, make sure that you are sealing the coffee up properly in between use so that the summer and fall months won't encourage any sort of aging. A slightly higher moisture content could mean that the coffee might taste better with a softer roast as more moisture speeds along Maillard reactions. Coupled with a low-density roast, you might expect a softer roast to be appropriate. Be sure to check out the roasters notes for more details on how to approach this coffee.Diedrich IR5 Analysis by Doris Garrido
I admit that the first thing that comes to my mind when roasting Geshas is to hit that ethereal floral spot, but my roast of this coffee has made me appreciate the beauty of simplicity. It leans heavily into lemongrass, crisp lemon acidity, and high sweetness. For sure it benefited from Brazil's unique terroir, which usually came with a heavier body and deeper sugar browning, but in terms of delicate florals Isabella Ikawa roast got it better. For this analysis, I did two roasts. On the first one, I looked to roast the coffee as I usually would with Geshas: slowly introducing the heat during the first half of drying, then using that heat to drive through until I reached Maillard and finally finishing the roast gently. What I did for this first roast was: charge at 390°F, wait to pass the turning point, then apply full gas. I dropped to my lowest setting (30%) at 350°F, hit the first crack at 382°F, and cut the burners at 393°F. This ended with an overall roast time of 8:54 minutes: 5:21 in drying, 2:16 in yellowing/Maillard, and a development time of 1:17. The results yielded a tea-like body, a botanical citrus-herbal lemon curd clarity, and the delicate sweetness of agave nectar and spun sugar like crystal sweetness. However, I felt my Maillard phase went a bit faster than the coffee needed. This made me wonder: what if I stretched Maillard and focused on a bit more caramelization? So, I did a second roast. On this one, I charged at 380°F and applied full gas before the turning point, then dropped the gas at 306°F just before the color change. I then cut the burners at 350°F for just past one minute to slow the ROR before first crack, which became audible at 388°F. I developed the coffee for 1:37, ending with a total roast time of 9:47 minutes and a drop temperature of 402.7°F. I was very surprised by the results when I cupped it the next day against my first roast. I didn't have a favorite; the first roast had a lighter body and a more botanical taste, but the acidity opened beautifully like caramelized lemons, keeping its distinctive botanical character alongside a honey-like sweetness. It was an elegant, light-bodied Gesha. On the other hand, my second roast had a bigger body, a buttery, creamy finish, and notes of a dark, creamy syrup, dates, and raisins. It was soft, round, and calm—like a beautiful Sunday coffee. Ultimately, the spectrum where this coffee can perform is incredibly wide; you can easily take it to whichever style you prefer. As a quick side note, Isabella ran the Ikawa roast. Although I didn't get to cup them with her, it turns out her high-density (HD) profile was showing more of the distinctive florality of this cultivar, which makes a lot of sense. On my two production roasts, I mistakenly forgot to increase the airflow until just before the first crack. I can't quite explain why I did that-just a mistake- but I will absolutely be using max airflow on my upcoming batches.Aillio Bullet R1 IBTS Analysis by Evan Gilman
We use the RoasTime app and roast.world site to document our roasts on the Bullet. You can find our roast documentation below by searching on roast.world, or by clicking on the link below. Take a look at our roast profiles below, as they are constantly changing! On Doris’ recommendation, as well as my prior experience with Gesha coffee, I took this one very gently to its destination. While I was warned that lack of time in Maillard would yield a brighter lemongrassy flavor to this coffee, I went for it anyway. This coffee takes on heat phenomenally well, so you won’t need much push to replicate my roast. I started off with a charge temperature of 446F, with P8 power and F3 fan from the start to really temper my heat application. I even added F4 well before yellowing in order to spend a bit more time in green/drying phase. After yellowing I reduced heat to P7, and a full minute before first crack I introduced F5 fan, usually the highest setting I'd use with a denser coffee. To keep my roast from taking off, I increased to a cheeky F6, and took heat application to a scant P6 at first crack. I concluded the roast at 9:30 / 400F. The result in the cup wasn’t a jasmine floral bomb, but what it was was even more interesting. Plenty of marzipan and almond paste sweetness, a touch of lemongrass herbal, mandarin orange citrus acidity, and a lingering hint of chrysanthemum tea on the finish. At once a comforting and curious cup, this is unlike any Brazil I've had in the past. I imagine taking this one darker into caramelization territory would yield an amazingly sticky, creamy, and ponderable espresso. In fact, I really want to try this as soon as possible. Sure, I’ll settle for a French press, just give me all those solids in the cup. This is one to try for certain! You can follow along with my roast here at roast.world: https://roast.world/egilman/roasts/fTx7SPKW9dDDZmBGZ7GlCIkawa Pro V3 Analysis by Isabella Vitaliano
Our current Ikawa practice compares two sample roast profiles, originally designed for different densities of green coffee. The two roasts differ slightly in total length, charge temperature, and time spent between color change in first crack. You can learn more about the profiles here. All roads lead to a slow roast… or so it seems? Based on the green specs and the cultivar type, historically in the Crown building we take it soft and slow to bring out those florals the best we can. What we found on the Ikawa was quite the opposite. The low density roast it was a little bit empty and a touch grassy in the cup, whereas the high density had a touch of herbal and florals along with kiwi flavor notes. Before taking this coffee to a production roast try out the high density profile to get a peek into what this coffee has to offer. You can roast your own by linking to our profiles in the Ikawa Pro app here:- Roast 1: Low Density Sample Roast
- Roast 2: High Density Sample Roast
Brew Analysis by Marie de Courcy
It’s been a while since I’ve seen a Brazilian coffee in the cafe, and a Gesha no less was an extra unexpected surprise. Luiz Paulo has produced something truly wonderful with this washed coffee. Brazilian coffee and Gesha tend to have many preconceptions about them, and this coffee is an excellent example of the best of those things that come to our minds when we consider them. Nutty sweetness, delicate florals, soft citrus, and full-bodied flavor all come together in a cup that feels truly unique, and reminds you that Brazilian coffee is truly something to be celebrated, not just something to throw into your blend. My first recipe was brewed on a V60. Ground at 10.5, with a dose of 18.5g, and a brew time of 4:15. This cup was very smooth, fairly juicy and slightly creamy. Light caramel, pink grapefruit, lemongrass, and butter toast were tasted in this cup. My second recipe I kept every variable the same, but brewed on the Kalita Wave. I wanted to see how the extra contact time would affect the flavor without shifting the profile too much. This brought out much more sweetness and body, and really brought some great balance to the cup. I tasted orange blossom, lemonade, almond, and pastry cream. This cup felt much more indulgent, leaning into the dessert like qualities of this coffee.