Daterra Sweet Yellow Coffee

We first discovered Daterra Coffee Estate during a trip to Brazil in 2005. We were delighted to see the ethical, environmental, quality and traceability standards which were in place and rigorously applied there. Owned by Luis Pascoal who is a well-known Brazilian businessman and philanthropist, Daterra is one of the pinnacles of coffee production in the world.

Daterra’s Sweet Yellow boasts an intense sweetness that is rarely found in coffee. It has a lovely underlying acidity and a medium body. The yellow bourbon beans gives a clean and sweet aftertaste. We roast this coffee to a medium roast and often sell it for use in espresso machines, although it also works very well in filter or cafetiere.

We initially bought this coffee on behalf of Mr Steve Perez, owner of the Casa Hotel, but found that as more people tried it, it grew and grew in popularity.

Sweet Yellow has an elegant brown sugar aroma with an invigorating nutty flavour, a moderate balanced acidity and a smooth medium body. Its aftertaste is floral and sweet.

We first discovered Daterra Coffee Estate when I was invited to visit in 2005 with a group of fellow Coffee Roasters on a field trip that had been organised by one of our trusted coffee importers DR Wakefield. The trip included 4 days and 3 nights at Daterra Estate staying as guests of Luis Pascoal and his family.

Daterra first entered the coffee marketplace in 1908 by Luis’ father when he started a market café selling coffee by the cup. The business progressed rapidly via a grocery store, then a petrol station and when the petrol station was sold they opened an automobile part store which started the Dpaschoal chain.

By 1980 Daterra started investing in agri business and in 1984, all the agri business investments were directed to the production of sustainable and speciality coffees, going full circle from 1908. The main stay of Daterras’ business ethics is sustainability and social responsibility. Their farms all have a minimum of 50% preservation area and it is clear that Daterra see their employees and the community they live in as being their most valuable assets.

Daterra is located in the Serrado Region and in the Mogiana Region they have over 3,250 hectares of preservation land with 150,000 native trees planted. They produce 14,000 tonnes of organic compost per year and apply this to over 15 million coffee bushes. With this level of dedication their coffees have achieved:

• Cup of Excellence finalist in 2001
• Best coffee from Brazil on the cupping for Quality by Rainforest Alliance in 2005 and 2008
• Espresso Blend used by World Barista Champion Troels Poulsen in 2005
• Espresso Blend used by World Barista Champion Klaus Thomsen in 2006
• Sustainable farm model by IllyCafè in 2008
• Four out of the six WBC finalists used Daterra coffee in their blends in 2008
• Coffee used by World Latte Art Champion, Haruna Murayama, in 2010
• Blend used by World Syphonist Champion, Chizuru Motokawa, in 2010
• Brazil’s most Sustainable Farm, by Globo Rural Magazine in their 2015 Sustainable Farm Award.

Their environmental and ethical certifications are equally impressive with them holding 100% Rainforest Alliance Certification, ISO 14001 Environmental System Certification, EsalQ Environmental Preservation Certification, IBD (IFOAM Organic Certification) and UTZ KAPEH environmental and social certification.

They have also run for the last 19 years a non-profit institution devoted to promoting citizenship and improving education amongst children and teenagers called Educar Foundation.

Coffee at Daterra is produced using a patented system they have developed called the Penta System. This covers every process from planting new coffee seedlings through harvesting, drying, processing and sorting and finally warehousing and packaging. Much of their coffee is packed in the patented Penta pack system in which the raw green coffee beans are vacuum packed into 24kg boxes. Green Coffee in ordinary hessian sacks will keep for up to 18 months under proper conditions although 12 months is the maximum for most roasters whereas coffee packed under the Penta System will easily last 3 years, thus allowing special small lots to be well-preserved for a long period of time.

Daterra Sweet Yellow is one of my favourite coffees and boasts an intense sweetness with a good underlying acidity and medium body. It has a clean and sweet aftertaste that is achieved by roasting it to a simple medium depth. Daterra describes Sweet Yellow as follows:

• Aroma – Elegant, brown sugar
• Flavour – Invigoratingly nutty
• Sweetness – Fabulous intensity
• Acidity – Medium and balanced
• Body – Moderate and smooth
• Aftertaste – Floral and sweet