Brazil Tres Barras Estate Coffee
Brazil Tres Barras Estate Coffee One Roast
For the first time we bought some Tres Barras last summer and it had “held well” as a late-harvest coffee. As an existing customer, we were lucky enough to be able to buy it again as a fresh crop. I do mean lucky as when this is a fresh crop it is stunning and “next level”, compared with the summer delivery. For me, this coffee can do little wrong, with a depth of fruit and very low acidity it is made for great filter and espresso in a single roast.
TOP TRUMPS
Tres Barras Estate Coffee
Farmer: Patricia Mendonca
Varieties: Obata, Catuai, and bourbon.
Location: Sao Sebastiao De Grama, Mogiana
Process: Natural
Farm size: 59 Hectares; 40 of which are grown as coffee.
Harvesting: Manual
Roast: Light-Medium Filter.
Cup Profile:🥣
Aromatics: Soft Fruit, black tea, spicey | Body: Light-Med | Acidity: Plum and soft, low sweet acidity |
On opening, those bold aromatics quickly convert into a soft plummy acidity, with a chocolatey background. On the cooling journey, Tres Barras softens into a wide range of ripe white, blue and pink fruit sugars with a satisfying finish. Yes, we are talking about superb Brazil.
Filter Recipe: I would start at 65g per liter for cafetiere, V60, and Aeropress, which can be juicier with less coffee. Just unbeatable in cafetiere.
Espresso:
Milk-based drinks: 93-94C, 17g into 33g for milk-based drinks worked brilliantly in approximately 30 seconds!
9oz Milk based-drinks were so good! For what looks to be a shy espresso (if you are judging by colour) there are lots of lactic sugars and some dark chocolate. The flat white was juicy and bright like the cooling filter, with a balance of chocolate and soft fruit. Getting this perfect will all be about milk temperature…
The espresso. 93-94C, 17g into 45-50g in 28-35 seconds. If your shots are not in the zone, taste them. You might like them…seriously. We could hardly believe just how well this worked in espresso. The low acidity meant that we still had all of the sweetness of a good filter in the cup, with a milk chocolate base. No wild acidity and no shocking strength!
Farm Stuff
Sao Sebastiao De Grama is famous for producing specialty coffee. Patricia and her husband Luiz bought Tres Barras in 2017 as a standard “coffee farm”. Patrícia made a big career shift and bought the farm to produce high-quality specialty coffees and live closer to nature. Their goal is to explore the exceptional flavours that their coffees can bloom, based on responsible and careful production.
For the record (you can laugh at me if you like! I have) it turns out that Tres Barras means 3 bars in Spanish. Barra in Portuguese means a geographic formation that happens close to the water, like a small beach. I asked Patrícia about the farm name and she said that her husband Luiz named it this way because his grandfather had a farm named Tres Barras when he was a boy. They sold the first “Tres Barras” many years ago, but when Luiz bought his own piece of land he named it honoring his childhood memory.
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