The Araponga region is a micro-region within the Matas de Minas region, in the state of Minas Gerais. The region is embraced by the Atlantic Forest, which makes it very suitable to produce specialty coffees.
Araponga consistently produces great coffees and had an outstanding performance at Cup of Excellence 2017, which made the whole community very proud and confident of the dedication of our partners.
This great result is a natural consequence of several years of hard work and local producers who accepted to invest in specialty coffee. Everything started with washed coffees and controlled fermentation tests at Serra do Boné Farm in 2014.
With the positive results there, the neighbors started trying new techniques that our partner, Bourbon Coffees, guided in workshops and lectures.
Basic information such as cupping techniques, post-harvest procedures, and courses that explained what specialty coffee should look and taste like, were held in the region. Nowadays, Bourbon celebrates a network of 200 producers only in this little region of Minas Gerais.
It is important to mention that most of these properties are small ones based on family farming, with maximum 10 hectares. We can say that approximately 90% of producers are small, 7% are medium farmers with properties until 50 hectares and only 3% are big producers with farms bigger than 100 hectares.
The most common varieties in the region are Red Catuaí, Yellow Catuaí and Catucaí. The sensorial profile presents floral, sweetness, slightly herbal, wine, grape, liqueur and jabuticaba (Brazilian berry).
Another strong characteristic of the region is the microclimates. Sometimes, the same property can have different microclimates from one crop to another, and this contributes to different nuances of flavors in the cups. The influence for this to happen is the high altitudes in the region, the higher humidity, and the cold temperatures, and also the proximity with the Atlantic Forest – a perfect combination for the production of specialty coffees.