Baixadão is a mult-award winning coffee farm located in Brazil’s famed Mantiqueira de Minas region, in the south of Minas Gerais close to the border with São Paulo state.
Tom first visited Baixadão in 2019, and the experience certainly left a mark. The immaculate rows of perfectly tended coffee trees merged seamlessly and sympathetically with the rolling landscape, testament to the level of care and attention, and the huge amount of work that owner Sebastião Afonso Da Silva has undertaken over the many years that he has overseen the farm.
All this is manifest in some truly stunning coffees, and culminated in Sebastião winning the 2015 Brazil Late Harvest Cup of Excellence competition with a 95.18 scoring natural catuaí - the highest score awarded in any Cup of Excellence competition to date.
Tom revisited Baixadão in 2022, where he learned that they had recently stopped spraying the crop and applying chemical fertiliser to the soil. They had also started to plant cover crops between the rows of coffee trees with a view to improving soil health. The growing worm population is a great indicator that things are heading in the right direction, and Sebastião’s son Helisson took great delight in digging up the red soil and showing us some fine specimens!
Helisson is increasingly overseeing the work on the farm, and it was encouraging to see how knowledgable and passionate he is about it, leaving us with the feeling that Baixadão will be in good hands for the many years that we hope to continue this journey with them.
Baixadão
