Daterra Welcomes Barista Champions

Famed Brazilian Producer Daterra Welcomes Barista Champions for an Unforgettable Week Exploring Coffee!

Dattera Welcomes Barista Champions
The baristas walk by the enormous dry mill at Daterra.

For the second year in a row, Daterra Coffee, invited the six finalists from the World Barista Championship to visit their farm in Cerrado, Minas Gerias, Brazil to experience coffee production firsthand.

Dattera Welcomes Barista Champions
Daterra is all about sustainability so naturally bikes make a great way to tour the huge farm. From left: Ben Put, Eduardo Affonso Scorsin, Charlotte Malaval, Carolina Franco de Souza,  Gabriel Agrelli Moreira, and Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood.

Three of the six finalists were able to make the trip, and they were joined by two of Brazil’s champion baristas for the visit.

Daterra Welcomes Barista Champions
Harvest is in full swing at Daterra. A huge truck full of coffee is unloaded in the wet mill for sorting and processing.

Canadian Barista Champion Ben Put from Monogram Coffee in Calgary, Alberta; United Kingdom Barista Champion  Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood from Colonna and Smalls in Bath, England; and French Barista Champion Charlotte Malaval met up with Brazilian Coffee in Good Spirits Champion Eduardo Affonso Scorsin and Brazilian Brewers Cup Champion Carolina Franco de Souza both from Lucca Cafes in Curatiba, Brazil in Sao Paulo before taking an early morning flight to Uberlandia and then driving to the farm for their week-long adventure through Dattera’s amazing coffee growing and processing operation guided by Gabriel Agrelli Moreira.

Daterra Welcomes Barista Champions
The baristas cup some of Daterra’s coffees in the company’s cupping lab.

While the group had an opportunity to tour the facilities and the farms to see how the coffee is grown and processed, the event is much more hands on than just that. The baristas also had a chance to harvest coffee by hand, with the help of seasoned mentors who gave assistance and advice for picking. Not just that, but the baristas had their choice of varietals to pick!

Daterra Welcomes Barista Champions
The baristas pose with their mentors and their cherry after a couple of hours picking.

After filling two buckets with cherry, the baristas then faced their next decision: How to process the coffee. Maxwell chose a traditional pulping, while Carolina, who picked only yellow bourbon, wanted to process her coffee as a natural, drying the pulp on the cherry. Eduardo, demonstrating his background in bartending, fermented his coffee with a bath of sugar and beer, while Charlotte invented an entirely new technique and depulped her coffee with her feet!

Daterra Welcomes Barista Champions
Charlotte shows off her personal depulping technique using traditional French wine methods.

Next the baristas needed to dry their coffee before they would sort it for defects the following day and roast it before cupping it on the last day of their visit. Of course, the whole thing is also a competition, so the baristas will be cupping blind and voting on which coffee they think is the best.

Daterra Welcomes Barista Champions
Ben looks for the ripest cherry he can find to fill his buckets. The baristas need at least 300g of good coffee to roast.

 

Daterra Welcomes Barista Champions
Eduardo wears the traditional picker’s garb as he searches for ripe yellow bourbon.

 

Daterra Welcomes Barista Champions
Brazilian coffee pickers traditionally use these round screens to catch any coffee that falls while they’re working on a tree. Here they hold various experimental coffees that have different varieties, processing, fermentation, and more.

 

Daterra Welcomes Barista Champions
The baristas work furiously to depulp their coffee by hand before the sun sets so that it can dry. They didn’t get it done in time, and had to turn to hair dryers instead to get enough moisture off the coffee that it could go in the sample dyer.
About Ken 263 Articles
Kenneth R. Olson (he/him) is co-founder and publisher of Barista Magazine the worldwide trade magazine for the professional coffee community. He has written extensively about specialty coffee, traveled near and far for stories, activities, and fun, and been invited to present on topics important to coffee culture. He is also an avid fan of the Portland Trail Blazers, the Washington Huskies, and public libraries.