A Look at the Evolution of the Casa Brasil Brand

As we launch our revamped packaging this fall, here is a look back at our brand incarnations over our 10 year history. From our cultural center house theme to our Brazilian promenade-inspired new packaging, it has always been about bringing a little bit of Brazil to you.

Casa Brasil – Sua Casa em Austin

Casa Brasil Coffees started off as just “Casa Brasil,” a Brazilian Cultural Center in Austin, Texas. Our motto was sua casa em Austin, or your home in Austin, and our mission was to promote Brazilian culture, serve Brazilians living in Central Texas, and provide a place to “touch” Brazil. Our logo represented just that – a Brazil-themed house surrounded by a tropical version of the Longhorn burnt orange. And yes, that is Comic Sans. If you are a graphic designer feel free to click here for some relief.

Casa Brasil Coffees – The Introduction of the “Swoosh”

The patterns and artists that inspired the current packaging are the same that inspired our initial coffee packaging. The green, yellow and blue swoosh on the cans was inspired by the promenade of Copacabana attributed to Burle Marx. It also seemed to provide several levels of interpretion, from the sensual to coffee steam rising out of the cup. The cans were more expensive, but the literature seemed to prove that they maintained product quality more than the bags and they had the advantage that they could be reused or at the very least recycled.

Casa Brasil Coffees – The Swoosh Goes Craft

At least for me, the connotations of ‘supermarket’ are fluorescent lighting, fruits and veggies culled of any defects, soft jazz, and perfectly crafted displays and packaging designed by marketing teams that may have never even tasted the food that lies inside their creations. One of the problems we faced with the cans was that it gave the impression that we were a big coffee company removed from the product, when in reality we were canning everything by hand on a home canner. The idea behind the hand-painted swoosh was to add a human touch – nothing too fancy or time-consuming, we thought! – that would showcase the hand-crafted nature of the product. Almost all of our coffee is grown by artisan smallholder growers, we pick out the coffees at source, roast in small batches and hand fill the bags. No matter what words we put on them or how pretty they were, this story seemed to be lost on the very nature of the cans.

Casa Brasil Coffees – The Elegance of Brazil

Over the last few years, not only has the hand painting taken away from where our focus needs to be – on the quality inside the bag – but I also felt the need to make the bags more “Brazilian.” Craft bags are pretty nondescript and seem to represent “micro-roaster” more than anything else. Although we are a micro-roaster, I think our love of and relationship with Brazil sets us apart. If you delve in past the superficial imagery often portrayed with Brazil, there is a world of treasures to be discovered, from Baden Powell to Burle Marx, from Naná Vasconcellos to Alex Atala. I wanted to envelop these incredible coffees in that, and bring some Brazilian beauty to the coffee shelves. Hopefully you enjoy!