Destroyed by barons, Vale do Café recovers with special beans

Whoever passes through the Presidente Dutra Highway, which connects São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro, still cuts through the same bald landscape, made basically of mountains covered with pasture.

But just take the secondary roads that lead to Vale do Café, on the Rio de Janeiro portion of the way, to understand that this reality is starting to change — in some of the historic farms, the coffee trees are slowly returning to keep company with the 19th century mansions.

They are small, almost experimental, coffee plantations that have been planted since 2015 and are already bearing fruit. Some farmers have already managed to officially put their products on the market. This is the case of Fazenda Alliança, producer of Durini organic coffee, and Fazenda Florence, which won six awards, from 2019 onwards, with coffee Vale do Café.

It all started with the Vocações Regionais da Cafeicultura Fluminense project, created by Sebrae-RJ in 2014. Hired by the entity, Flávio Borem, professor at the Department of Agricultural Engineering at the Federal University of Lavras, visited the region with the mission of helping landowners to recover the coffee tradition.

The scene was desolate. “Their view was that those lands were useless, but I showed that there are techniques to restore the soil”, says Borem.

The disenchantment of the farmers was right. During the heyday of Vale do Café, in the mid-19th century, properties spread across the municipalities of Barra do Piraí, Rio das Flores, Vassouras and Valença were responsible for 75% of world coffee production.

Some farms accumulated more than 1 million feet. Rich and powerful, their owners won titles of nobility and maintained a close relationship with the royal family.

But the period of opulence was short – in about half a century, most of them went from fortune to bankruptcy. Without mastering management techniques, they burned the native Atlantic Forest and planted the coffee plantations in vertical columns, up the slopes.

The strategy allowed them to keep an eye on the slaves’ work from afar, but favored erosion and the dragging of nutrients. Within a few decades, the soil was practically barren.

The abolition of slavery, in 1888, was the shovel of lime. With production in decline and without enslaved labor, the barons abandoned the region, leaving behind a trail of destruction that lasted for more than a century.

Now, the new generation of coffee growers in Vale do Café does not care about volume. Focused on the production of specialty coffees, they strictly follow the manuals of good practices in the field and in processing.

Planted in contour lines, in soil covered with organic matter, Arabica coffee trees grow irrigated by a drip system, among native trees, which in a few years will guarantee shading. The harvest is manual and only the ripe fruits are chosen.

The drying method varies by property. At Fazenda da Taquara, the only one still in the hands of the same family, for six generations, the grains have dried in the sun on the old cement yard. In Florence, they are arranged in suspended trays protected under greenhouses. Alliança also uses ovens, but a dryer has already been ordered.

Because it is such a recent production, the new coffee growers in the valley have not yet been able to determine which variety has the greatest potential in the region. In the past, it was Mundo Novo, but currently the most common are Arara, Yellow and Red Catuaí, Bourbon and Catucaí.

Excited with the initial results, the producers are already investing in the expansion of crops. Marcelo Streva, heir to Fazenda da Taquara, plans to increase from 16,000 to almost 20,000 by the end of the year. But it is from tourism that the return is coming more quickly.

The approximately 500,000 tourists that Vale do Café received before the pandemic gained an extra incentive to visit the farms. “They visited the mansions, listened to the stories, but did not see any coffee”, recalls Leda Barreto, an analyst at Sebrae-RJ, who participated in the implementation of the project.

Now, the properties offer the complete experience, from the field to the cup, and they sell the coffees that, due to their reduced production, have not yet reached retail – to buy them, you have to go to the producers.

On the São Luiz da Boa Sorte farm, in Vassouras, the little more than a thousand plants were planted next to an old structure, transformed into the Coffee Museum. If the visit takes place between March and August, visitors are lucky enough to see the harvest up close.

At Fazenda Florence, a micro-roasting and coffee shop was built literally in the middle of the coffee plantation and it is there that tourists end their visit, tasting the house coffee. At Fazenda Alliança, a similar structure occupies the old bin: after seeing how the beans are roasted, tourists can enjoy hot and cold drinks with coffee.

Once a month, Vale do Café still hosts the event Rota do Grão and a tasting of Cachaça. During the 2022 season, from April to August, coffee and cachaça producing farms will be open, offering complete experiences, from field visits to tastings, with peeks inside the mansions. The next one takes place on May 21 and 22, with tickets sold at sympla.com.br.

It is worth stretching the program and staying in one of the old headquarters, decorated with period furniture and adornments. The complete list of properties can be found on the website portalvaledocafe.com.br.