ademilson noiman borges

Sítio Grota Fria

Ademilson’s family has been growing coffee in the village of Ferreiras, in the Mantiqueira de Minas region of Brazil, for nearly a century. He planted his first coffee trees in the mid-nineties and for the last decade has focused on producing high-quality specialty coffees. Because of this he has faced social pressure from community members, including his father, who have favored a more traditional approach that focuses on quantity over quality. Over time, however, he has managed to overcome these pressures, steadily improving the quality of his coffee with the lessons learned from each harvest.

As part of his improvement effort, Ademilson joined APAS, whose membership includes over 40 coffee growing families who live outside of São Gonçalo do Sapucaí in the Mantiqueira de Minas region. The organization’s goal is to unify the growers of the region and to help increase their coffee quality through better access to tools and information, while serving as a forum for members to share harvesting and processing methods. APAS also provides its members with access to a larger market, an important incentive for the growers to invest in quality. Ten years after joining APAS, Ademilson became the president. Since 2016, he has participated in Casa Brasil’s Selective Harvest Project. Following the project’s guidelines of picking only ripe fruit and carefully processing and drying the coffee, Ademilson won the 2017 Fair Trade competition for the best fair trade coffee in Brazil and finished an impressive 14th in the 2018 Cup of Excellence naturals competition.

Farm: Sítio Grota Fria
Municipality: São Gonçalo do Sapucaí
State: Minas Gerais
Region: Mantiqueira de Minas

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