During this chat we discussed coffee farming techniques for specialty coffee and the methods for keeping a coffee farm sustainable. Jonas is an expert agronomist from Brazil with many years helping coffee farmers in his region Jaguariúna and other regions in the country. He specializes in organic and conventional coffee farming.
During out chat we learned about coffee farming techniques, right humidity levels, sun exposure and more details about maintaining a healthy coffee environment in the farm.
Below is the entire transcript. Hope you find this conversation informative. You can always contact me if you have any questions. Thanks!
Rudy
The video here, Right. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Finally. How’s everything over there in Brazil?
Jonas
Fine. Fine. It’s. We are getting back it back to the. After a long month of rains, we start to have some some sun and April, but still very warm than usual for this month.
Rudy
Okay. All right, so what. What part of Brazil are you located?
Jonas
In the Southeast at for people worldwide that usually know Brazil for Rio.
Rudy
Yes.
Jonas
We are not so far apart. Is in the same part of the country. I’m about 600, 700 kilometers from Rio.
Rudy
From. Yeah. Okay. What’s the name of the city there?
Jonas
I’m in Jaguariuna. It’s a city in a state nearby Rio. It’s called Sao Paulo. They state. Yeah. Okay. And in the end, kept always so. Paulo, too, is like New York and New York. But then. And then I countries kind of the country side of the they state we are about. Let me say, about 250 kilometers from the capital of the state.
Rudy
Oh, okay. Okay. Nice. Nice. I wanted to a chat you. We’ve been in contact for a long time. Yeah. We never got a chance to speak, but I just wanted to. Since we are in the coffee, I cannot say I’m in the business, but I’m in the into it for a while. So I wanted to learn more from an expert agronomists like yourself.
Rudy
So, what is it that you do? And. And why do you specialize in coffee?
Jonas
Yeah, I. I like to give a little bit of perspective why I am working with coffee. It’s the first reason. It is because my father is a coffee farmer. And since I know my my father works with coffee in some way and he start with a very tiny farmland with less than 1000 trees of coffee. And then after that, he bought a little bigger one.
Jonas
Not the huge farm about a let me say, about 10,000 trees. And I always seeing her him struggling with coffee prices and saw that is a shoe with many farmers that I met during my journey. Reunions or and courses. Every farmer complain about the prices and how to compete. This. It was like like 20 years ago and Brazil was not well known with quality coffee.
Jonas
Country because of a lot of stereotypes that we have in Brazil. But farmers start to understand that like specialty coffee, something that could make money. And then they went to the university to study agronomy and coffee was always my focus to think about how to bring more opportunities, more profit to the farmers in the region that I still working.
Jonas
My father Farms is about 50 kilometers away for here, about one hour by car. Okay? And then I start to work when I get my degree, start to work with that small coffee farmers, and then I learn a lot way to specialty, but with other chains related to coffee like organics, agro forest, regenerative. So everything it’s it’s working in favor to me to stay in the coffee area.
Jonas
And then I saw a lot of opportunities to with the people that working the industry that coffee farmers in that time. But now it’s a little bit different they know each other and that is still why the roasters want what baristas want or what coffee shops want. Yes. So I like to talk with everyone and understand what coffee farmers should do in order to reach the expectations of the industry.
Jonas
Like roasters brands, and thinks like that, okay.
Rudy
That’s great, that’s wonderful. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to chat with you, because I notice you really like this. You really like what you do, and that’s something that I admire from you. So, so I wanted to, since you mentioned the word Specialty Coffee, there’s a lot of people, especially in big cities, that don’t really understand what is the meaning of specially coffee and why is it so much, it costs so much more than any conventional coffee that you buy, you know, whatever Dunkin Donuts, for example, in this country is one of the main ones.
Rudy
So what is your opinion about that? Like, why should people pay more if it’s Specialty Coffee.
Jonas
Yet coffee chain, once a friend of mine said that coffee chains are very confused chain. Because there’s a lot of branches. They are a lot of people working with coffee, a lot of origins and a lot of countries, and it not well-organized in a lot of stuff like terms. How I say specialty for a for like usual people that drink coffee do not understand that SCI protocol.
Jonas
Do you really understand what mean 80 points plus or things like that is too much complicated. So I think today we are living now word of a lot of options and not just in coffee. So if there for instance, when the fermented coffee they not the usual one that people do in Colombia, but the one that people are using East to force some kind of fermentation uses some stuff.
Jonas
I was very worried because a lot of farmers do not have ways to deliver this kind of coffee. For me, especially when I start to work with coffee, I think specialty should be specialty to the farmer, have some kind of profit. But along my way I learned that a lot of coffee should be traded as conventional coffee because in the farm it’s very expensive to do a specialty coffee sometimes because need a lot of gear in something, sometimes a lot of training with beakers and stuff like that.
Jonas
And I saw that a specialty should be a part of the way. But conventional is very important too you because sometimes is a coffee that some people should could afford. At least in Brazil, a coffee is very expensive. If you think about specialty for a kilo, about two pounds of coffee, we will pay. In terms of Brazilian average wage, about ten percent out of the total wage of a person’s like.
Jonas
Because if someone earn a thousand dollars a month, a specialty coffee will cost a kilo about hundred dollars. So in terms of of course, and all is a little bit different, but it’s kind of the same. So I saw we just should explain in a way that customers should understand, okay, this is a specialty. And like you said, this cost more because of that of that.
Jonas
But this is conventional if you have just the way to pay for that. But you should understand it is very different for this kind of coffee. It’s a lower quality coffee. That’s why it costs less. And there is some stuff that could taste different and stuff. It’s it’s for me, it’s now it’s important to start to educate drinkers.
Jonas
But enough in is not not enough. How can I say that? And not pushing too much the people to drink coffee I don’t like that. Do like you have to drink coffee with no sugar? You have to drink coffee in this roast level should be from some place in the world. I I like to the choices for the customer, the drinker.
Jonas
But he knew we should educate him. Okay. That roasted coffee means that like to roasted means that low quality coffee. It means that if you drink coffee from Peru is taste like most like that from me. Ethiopia is like that, Brazil like that. So make your choice. And for me, this it’s something that along the way change it about industry.
Jonas
They are very important in the segment like even they sometimes serve I think really bad quality coffee but they still sometimes the the first stage first step to people to start to drink something different that you buy in a in a shelf of grocery for a Folgers or a Maxwell or something like that. So it’s important to people like have is like baby steps step Yeah.
Rudy
Yes, its a long way. It might take a long, long while for people to understand. Then how about in the in the farm? Like the methods for growing the organic coffee? What is it that you do differently there compared to the conventional one.
Jonas
uhmm. Yet organic coffee a world wide and there some difference some farmers followed the rules for some third party certification institute like in the United States they the USDA that regulate the rules in Europe is the union in Japan is different and in Brazil is different. So and depending on what kind of market the coffee farmers want to sell their beans, they should follow the rules for one of them or all of them to be to have the coffee like approve it, to sell in different markets, but basically is a no conventional chemicals like herbicides and stuff like that.
Jonas
But they could use some fungicides that are authorized by the them that are certified companies, which is low a low or no toxicity toxicity to the to people or to the environmental. They do not to use any kind of soluble fertilizer usually conventional crops use if you grow something at home, you buy like small packs with round fertilizer, which are so soluble fertilizer, very concentrated fertilizer.
Jonas
So usually the farmers into organic use like add organic matter from crops like castor oil. How can I say that I forgot the word like green, some kind of weeds that we grow and cut and process in order to these weeds it turns we’re turning some kind of more concentrated fertilizer or a manure, which is poop for some animal like cattle or pork.
Jonas
But the agronomist that work with organics should understand which nutrients are available in each source of of of fertilization, no matter if it’s manure or a green manure, which is the name that we give to these crops that we could use there for fertilization. The agronomist uses this same knowledge to you to give the right balance of nutrients for the coffee tree in order to have good yields.
Jonas
And the farms do have profit and which more it’s it’s the farmers from organic should be more take more care of the crop because if we’re not using any kind of a pesticide we should always look to the crop if we need to do something. Usually in conventional farming is easier because if I have a insect that there eating something, I just spray insecticide on everything and you all.
Jonas
But in the organic, we have to control and find a balance between the plagues that will be present in the crop and the animals or other insects that will eat the plague or control. Naturally, this plagues on the fields. So it’s not easy. That’s usually organic. Coffee is more expensive too, because usually take a lot of more work over.
Jonas
They are a little bit less, have a less yellow in the end of the year. And the farmer who had to put all these effort and time to take care of organic crop.
Rudy
Okay, I see. So is there also a way in the let’s talk about the soil than the coffee plant grows. Okay. What’s the ideal soil or environment or temperature for a coffee plant to to be successful or does it depends on the varietal. Also the coffee three. But our priority I see some of them not like the we directly on the sun.
Rudy
Some of them don’t like it. The altitude. What’s your opinion about that?
Jonas
Yeah, the the varieties A it usually are more adapted to the country that they were bred. Like in Colombia they bred coffee varieties in order usually to grow under their need of some kind of shade. So if I bring this coffee varieties to Brazil, maybe they will not be successful as the same as the Brazilian variety that we had 100 years of breeding in order to have a coffee that’s very resistant to to full sun exposure.
Jonas
So our varieties in Brazil behave good between like like 800. We are talking about Arabica, but it’s about 800 to 1200 meters sea level. Okay. That’s why is maybe some farmer take a seeds from Brazil from Brazil and take to Central America. Maybe these right will not work well because they’re not well adapted or not well-tested in different environment those that we have here, but usually a country of variety.
Jonas
For one country, they hold breeding program. They have like very similar characteristics, but they only think that’s change. It’s the the ripeness process. We have early middle and late varieties. So if finally high altitude in Brazil, maybe you should not plant elite late variety because the the the harvesting will be too much late so maybe I should use the early variety because it’s colder and then we have a good balance of growing in temperature for this is specific tree and the conditions.
Jonas
Yeah the temperatures in Brazil do not change a lot, but we have a lot of difference in terms of sunlight site. If the coffee plant in the east or in the south that the same variety could have a difference between ripeness in about one or two months in the same farm. I saw that so when when the same varieties in different sides of the the mountain could give different maturation in different taste for the coffee.
Jonas
So coffee and it could be grown in every place if we respect the quantity of temperature, water and sun exposition. So that’s why sometimes people grow coffee in a in a in a pot at home.
Rudy
And because of that, yeah.
Jonas
It’s not because you could usually because that’s the seeds lost fresh this is an issue. When we buy a seed for us some green a green seed for some place, they usually are 10% of humidity or something close of that. But for a germination proposal you should have a seed with more than 30% of humidity level in. the seed. If you working with low humidity, probably your seed is they already dead in some way or they are get very deep hibernation process and these are really hard to break it.
Jonas
So if we’re trying to grow coffee using like coffee for roasting, you should put a lot of seeds in a in a pot, you know, in order to check if some will sprout and then pick the good ones and transplant to another pot at it. But mostly it’s because of humidity level. It’s high. It’s not easy to sprout a seed.
Rudy
I think because the one that I brought was from Costa Rica, from a farm. So I picked up a cherry.
Jonas
I’ll pick up the cherry.
Rudy
Yeah. So I thought he was going to be successful, but it’s been there for two months already, so maybe.
Jonas
You head put on the on the part when you bring from Costa Rica.
Rudy
I put it on on water for some days to see if that started something and then I put it in the pot. But it’s being under the sun for a while. But I guess the temperature is not warm enough yet because we are we’re in the winter time. Okay. So yeah, yeah. So see so what is your favorite coffee variety?
Jonas
I was for a long time. I loved the taste and the profile of the yellow bourbon and this one, it still makes me happy when I drink a good quality cup of yellow. Bourbon was the first coffee that I drank a cup. And I see something different. You know, always when I have a cup, beans and a table of of coffee.
Jonas
If there is a yellow bourbon, I always know. Is the yellow bourbon there. Because it they have some special characteristics in profile that is easy to pick up this. Okay, this is yellow bourbon. But now in Brazil we have a new variety that’s called Arara.
Rudy
I saw that in one of your posts! I never heard of it. Yeah. Yeah.
Jonas
It’s a lot of farmers are growing that variety because have a excellent yellowed like very, very high and we could I read harvest it in one of my clients more than 100 bags of Arara in one hectare of a farm. So the average usually is 30 or 40 in Brazil. And if you take some countries in Central America, it’s like 12 bags or 20 bags per hectare.
Jonas
But these varieties could reach without some any kind of special technology like irrigation or stuff like that, near 200 bags per hectare. So we well at good yields. The coffee profile, it’s fantastic, but very complex. Very, very complex with good balance between the stuff and this coffee leaf, rust resistant, which is very good too. So that’s why many.
Rudy
Is this a mutation of another variety?
Jonas
It’s it came from the variety the the the the how can I say that the parents the the most close variety it’s called Sachimor with a hybrid. Yes it’s a hybrid for on Timor. For Timor hybrid and a variety thats called Oh my gosh I forgot the name of Villa Sarchi. That’s it’s not me scraping as it’s.
Rudy
Oh Villa Sarchi, yes.
Jonas
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rudy
I know. It’s Spanish. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They have it a lot in Central America.
Jonas
Yeah, Yeah. This two right. Yeah. Mm.
Rudy
One of my friends they have it in Honduras.
Jonas
Yeah.
Rudy
So see my previous video that I talked to him he was showing the, his farm. Oh cool he is in harvest right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jonas
This, this Arara, it’s the, the first generation. It’s, it’s was the this crossing and then we have a lot of varieties in Brazil using the same basis like the name it’s Obata and which there is some places in Central America they grow they grow the Obata whole and and and tupi which is a coffee leaf, a resistant variety.
Jonas
And so all this coffee leaf, rust resistant variety are are growing Brazil which is good because.
Rudy
Yes.
Jonas
Yeah. Because it’s more safer for the farmer. We do not need to spray a lot of fungicides in the crop because the varieties are already resistant. Yeah. So Arara it’s a variety which is growing a lot. A lot of farmers are planting because all the characteristic characteristics show that these varieties will prosper and farmers have good cupping notes.
Jonas
Like scores in the in the with this variety and and I try for it for years in a row in the same farm the variety and the Arara have some kind of course concern of course oh for the word like stability and in all the years which good quality good cup profile. So there is not a lot of variation between year by year.
Jonas
So yep, probably a lot of.
Rudy
The exporting that coffee already?
Jonas
Well yeah, there are a lot of friends that I work in roaster with roasting coffee in the United States that are buying this these variety. But usually you can just buy directly for the farmer and because if you go to a big warehouse, they mix everything. But there are, there are roasters that are came to Brazil to buy this specific.
Jonas
Right. Because of this cup quality.
Rudy
Okay. Nice. I hopefully I’ll find some of it around here. I never seen it in the US, I only seen it in one of your post. Mm hmm. Yeah, I just. So let’s keep this one short. I know you’re a busy man, but I want. I want to thank you for the chance to chat with you. I feel like I’m talking to a celebrity in the coffee.
Rudy
Coffee celebrity…
Jonas
So it was great to talk with you, too. And always, if you want to discuss something related to coffee or coffee industry, I will be happy to talk with you and share a little bit of my experiences in coffee. And for your your audience too, and the Instagram or wherever. Feel free to to invite me. I always will be glad to talk with you.
Rudy
Thank you. I will invite you for sure. So don’t forget. All right. So thank you very much.
Jonas
Thank you. Bye bye, My friend.
Rudy
Obrigado…
Jonas
Thank you…bye bye