DATERRA’S “COFFEE MISE EN PLACE”

Many people are shocked to learn that Daterra has more than 12 million coffee plants. They have 2.700 hectares of plantation out of their 6.600 hectares — everything else is environmental preservation (that’s more than half of our area!). This entire region has been segmented: the farm is divided into 216 individual plots ranging from 5 to 15 hectares. These plots are handled independently – they monitor each one independently to use only the appropriate quantity of water, fertilizer, or defensive for that specific plot. This is Daterra’s concept for a mini-farm.

All mini-farms pass through the main coffee phase every May degree and begin harvesting at the appropriate time. Harvesting is done with selective mechanical picking, which is part of a range of devices built and developed for coffee quality by Daterra. Essentially, this equipment has a lower vibration, is easier to handle, and can correctly collect ripe coffee beans. Green coffee beans will be left on the tree to finish their maturity process.

Harvesting follows a tight procedure: before harvesting, mini-farms are examined for the primary percentage of coffee; when the plot indicates 60 percent of ripe or overripe cherries, specialist machinery is dispatched to maximize the harvesting process. There is, however, an additional stage before that: tasting. Coffee’s essential value, as we all know, is mostly in the bean. Coffee’s core value, as we all know, is mostly in the bean. This implies that a cherry that seems to be ripe may not necessarily contain ripe beans. Tasting is the only way to make the proper selection. Once the batches have been found to have achieved the elite stage of development, quality control specialists will take the appropriate measures to roast and taste the coffee beans’ intrinsic flavor. If the coffee is very good, they will harvest that lot; otherwise, they will wait a few more days and repeat the procedure until the tastes have reached their peak.

Even though stringent methods are used to ensure that ripe coffee cherries are harvested at the most consistent density, the completed product must still be inspected by UNIPAC – Daterra’s Smart Coffee Processing Unit. Physically, coffee cherries are classified into eight maturity levels by UNIPAC:

Dry Underripe Cherries: these are cherries that progressed from green to dry. They taste bitter and “dirty” since they did not go through the entire maturing process and did not develop sugars and acidity. They end up as low-quality commercial coffee or organic compost.

Dried-on-tree: also known as the Cerrado natural, these cherries went through the whole maturation process and dried still attached to the tree. They taste chocolaty and full-bodied, sweet and clean.

Raisin: these cherries began to dry on the tree, but there is still some mucilage in them — they look like raisin and taste delicious, sweet, and full-bodied. 

Overripe: these cherries have the highest sugar content, and their beans have a silky mouthfeel – so sweet.

Fully Ripe: these cherries have the most sugar, and their beans have a silky mouthfeel – they’re so delicious.

Ripe: these cherries are just a few days away from reaching their optimum maturity. The beans are acidic rather than sweet, with overtones of yellow fruits. 

Underripe: they are between green and ripe: the beans taste astringent and dry at this time since they haven’t grown sufficiently, so we guide them to commercial lots.

Green: beans from green cherry are extremely astringent and bitter. The beans within the cherry are often not fully developed, and in this situation, the immature cherries are used in Daterra’s organic compost.

After all of this, they have all of the flavors that Daterra’s farm can generate, and they use them to build the flavors of our menu. Daterra’s staff can extract the high sweetness of an overripe plot’s cherries and combine it with completely ripe cherries from another plot to make a more balanced and intriguing coffee.