Brazil - Fazenda California

Fazenda California, owned by the Saldanha family, is located in the Brazilian subtropical region of the Norte Pioneiro do Parana. This region is characterized by being the area adjacent to southern Brazil able to develop coffee plantation without the low temperatures of the winter period which hinder production. The coexistence of volcanic soils of high fertility, good distribution of rainfall throughout the year and the binomial established between its average elevation of 750 meters and latitude 23ºS result in a micro climate with average annual temperature of 20ºC, four well defined seasons and a wide temperature range. This in turn creates the ideal environment for the development of the highest quality arabica coffee lots.

In the early 20th century, the land that is now Fazenda California served as a UC Davis coffee research center. In 2004, the Saldanha Rodrigues family acquired the farm. Being a visionary, the entrepreneur, Dr. Paulo Cesar Saldanha Rodrigues who always said that "You can always do things better," a new cycle of coffee plantation was then started on the property. Starting out as a research center for coffee for UC Davis more than a century ago, the last part of the 20th century it served as a sugar cane farm. Dead plant roots, compacted soil, no organic matter, erosion and degraded soil life that caused the farm to slip into a sad state of decay. In 2004, the farm was acquired by Dr. Paulo Cesar Saldanha Rodrigues and his nephew, Luiz Saldanha Rodrigues. The first one being a visionary entrepreneur, the latter an agronomy student and coffee Q-grader in the making. They had big plans to show that agriculture could regenerate a farm and that farming can heal, instead of only take. Not long after the acquisition of the farm, Paulo and Luiz went flying, and suffered a tragic plane crash, which killed Paulo. Luiz decided to continue forward with the dream together with this wife Flavia and complete revitalization of the farm from scratch. They completely revitalized 100% of its coffee production area, every structure on the property, all production processes, harvesting, wet mill, drying, storage and dry mill facilities were all upgraded along with a new management system of sustainable production. Today Luiz and Flavia live at the farm with their two daughters Heloisa and Maria. Fazenda California currently carries the following certifications: Rainforest Alliance, HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) Certification, Carbo Next Certification, I-rec Standard Certification.

FOB: $7.02/kg usd
FOT: $8.35/kg usd

In order to bring transparency between you and the farms producing these coffees, we always provide pricing details on what we paid to acquire this green coffee.