Visit to Brazil Fazenda Rio Verde in the Mantiqueira Mountains

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When you receive an email inviting you to visit a possible new supplier in most industries it can be quite a boring prospect, but when your in the coffee trade it's far from that, I have to admit when I received the invitation to visit the farms in the Mantiqueira Mountains of Brazil I was a little bit excited.

This was a trip well worth taking as it has led to what I believe maybe the start of a beautiful friendship(a little corny).  Why? Well we were privileged to meet a group of people that are passionate about producing a product they can be proud of.  

It has also bought us our latest single estate coffee, which we believe is going to be bringing some of that excitement to your tastebuds.

So where did we go first? Our main goal was to visit the  Fazenda(Farm) Rio Verde located in the Mantiqueira Mountains with its breath taking views and its diverse abundance of nature. But first we went to the guest house located at Fazenda Conquista at the Furnas Lake, we soon found out that this was also surrounded by all sorts of wild life and natural beauties.  

We had travelled around just over 4 hours from Sao Paulo and after unloading and and dinner our evening expedition was off to visit the local farm to see  the nursery where we saw them sprouting the coffee cherries and preparing them to be planted in the local fields, you can read a bit more about this in our, how does coffee grow? section, after returning to the guest house we were given the next days itinerary, which consisted of a 5.30am breakfast followed by another 2.5 hour trip to the Mantiqueira mountains where the Rio Verde farm is located.

This is what 5.30am looked like with the mist rising off the lake it was truly a spectacular view, which was a great way of starting the day, demonstrating the breathtaking views that Brazil has to offer.  But Brazil doesn't just have views it also is bustling with wildlife around  100m away there was a tree which was regularly visited by  toucans and in the bushes surrounding the house we found humming birds. A grainy picture of a  toucan follows  but it was very low light first thing in the morning, when it was taken.

Then for something a little less fun, a mini bus trip on some very bumpy roads!