Right now at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room, you’ll find the micro-lot coffee, Brazil Sitio Baixadao, which won the 2014 Cup of Excellence award for a Brazil natural-processed coffee. This is the most prestigious award that a coffee can win.
Starbucks sourced this coffee from the Sitio Baixadao farm in the mountains of Brazil’s Minas Gerais region, run by brothers Antonio Marcio and Sebastiao Afonso da Silva. Starbucks purchased the entire lot of the coffee, which was 2,000 pounds. This is a natural processed coffee, which means that the coffee cherries dry in the sunshine, giving the coffee amazing berry notes.
It is the first time that Starbucks has offered a Cup of Excellence winning coffee.
I brought the coffee to a friend, Jocelyn, and we had a great coffee tasting of it. The card describes that the Brazil Sito Baixado has “head-spinning sweetness and complexity. It’s mango flavors, tropical fruit aroma and creamy finish make quite simply one of the most exceptional coffees you will ever taste.”
Jocelyn and I tried this Brazil from both the Clover brewer and in a French press. Whatever brew method you choose, you can’t go wrong. This coffee is bursting with berry and had a huge creaminess texture to it, whether you Clover brew it or French press it. We shared the coffee with some of the store partners and worked a pretty intensive coffee tasting.
I brought mangoes for the coffee tasting, since that is one of the descriptors on the cards. The mangoes were good but interestingly the milk chocolate pairing with it was amazing. The creaminess of the milk chocolate with this coffee made everything in it come to life. You can really taste all these amazing dark berry, mango, and creamy flavors. I thought the milk chocolate was amazing with the coffee, regardless if you had it by the Clover brewer or a press.
We took a number of photos of our fun afternoon. It was wonderful to be able to share it with the Starbucks Bainbridge Island partners who working that day. Hope you enjoy all the pictures too!
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This looks fantastic.
Melody, I’ve been looking for Reserve information cards. I’ve only been able to find the West Preanger. I spoke to Customer Relations and some partners, and they said the Starbucks HQ randomly sends them the cards. Does the Brazil Sitio Baixadao have the information cards?
@Thomas – Your Frappuccino will be in tomorrow’s blog article!
As to the Reserve cards, they get sent to Reserve stores that have that coffee. It is possible now and then that certain Reserve cards are very hard to hunt down – for example the Nicaragua Laurina cards only went to the tiny number of stores that got that car=d. You can see the Brazil card in the photos above.
It’s an interesting this about the Starbucks Reserve cards – I’ve seen them turn up on eBay now and then. Just like some people collect mugs, the Starbucks cards that you can register, and Starbucks ornaments, some people pretty seriously collect these Starbucks Reserve cards too!
Nice pics!
Mango and chocolate – nice combination! Was that a chocolate cupcake too? Too bad this coffee is not around here!
@Purple1 – It might still end up more broadly available. I didn’t really say this in the article but what happened was Starbucks bought 2,000 pounds of this green coffee and then roasted a small amount for the Roastery to sell during the SCAA. There is still quite a bit of it unroasted. I think it’s possible that some of this might still show up online in StarbucksStore. If they can bag up 1,500 pounds, that’s not enough to send to all 1,200 Reserve Starbucks which leaves them with 3 options only: 1) ecommerce sales 2) Roastery only or 3) a small percentage of the 1,200 stores get this like when they did the Nicaragua Laurina. I don’t think we know yet which of those it’s going to be.
@Tracey – Thank you for noticing! I thought this pics came out really nicely too!
I’m curious how to pronounce this – is it “Sit-ee-o Bys-a-dow” (“dow” as in “down”)?
@Mary – I don’t know. Each time I bought a half-pound at the Roastery, I’d just refer to it as the “Brazil cup of excellence” coffee because I couldn’t even begin to pronounce it. If anyone can write out how to say it, I’d could benefit from a pronunciation lesson!
That is such an amzing experience! Makes me sad that i live in So Cal where coffee is not as popular. 🙁
I am salivating! That sounds insanely delicious!!!!!!!!
Hey @Mary and @Melody about the pronunciation it’s something like Ba (like in Bar) ee-sha (like in Sasha) dan – o.
If you ever heard someone saying São Paulo it will be easier to understand the end, because is sounds just like the São but instead of S a D.
Hope it helps you understand it better. ^^,
@Tamara – Thank you for the pronunciation guide!
[…] I recommend this past article from when the coffee was first available. […]