As part of the Cocatrel Cooperative in Tres Pontas, Sul De Minas, there is a group that was started this year for the female farmers who are part of the Cooperative.

The Cafeína Women Group is made up of 21 % of the members of the Cocatrel Cooperative, equating to 1154 women producers.
The idea was to encourage the engagement of these female producers in the decision making process of the Cooperative.

They are organized to have meeting every two months to improve their education and knowledge, but also to increase their visibility in the coffee growing community and promote their involvement.
The group at the Cooperative is led by Landra Vilela who has won awards for leading Women in coffee.

Each producer harvests and processes coffee on their own farms. The relatively flat landscape across many of Brazil’s coffee regions combined with high minimum wages has led most farms to opt for mechanical harvesting over selective hand-picking.

In the past, this mechanization meant that strip-picking was the norm. However, today’s mechanical harvesters are increasingly sensitive, meaning that farms can selectively harvest only fully ripe cherries at each pass. This is great news for specialty-oriented producers!

With the aid of these newer, more selective technologies, there’s a growing number of farms that are increasingly concerned with – and able to deliver - cup quality.

This coffee is a natural lot made up of Acaia and Mundo Novo.
The coffee is machine harvested before the grades are separated and then left to dry on the patio for 7-10 days.
The coffee is then left to rest and transitioned to static boxes or rotary dryers to finish drying for about 30 days before being hulled and then delivered to the cooperative.