In the words of one of my travel mates Jason Farrar, Brazil was “pretty rad.” It’s a big country with a diverse population!

When our friend Phyllis Johnson from BD Imports invited True's Production Manager Scott along on their Brazil trip, his main interest was to meet the Peixoto family, as we’ve been buying their coffee for a couple of years now. He also wanted to learn more about Black producers in Brazil — specifically, the challenges that those farmers are facing right now. Climate change came up a lot… Sadly, production is down this year for many of the producers they visited. Scott also wanted to get a chance to look at the quality of the coffees that are being harvested this season. And, of course, he cupped plenty of noteworthy coffees! 

Black smallholder producers don’t get a lot of representation in the marketplace, and this beautiful trip put a lot of that into context, hopefully allowing us at True to do a better job of telling the story of these wonderful people and their delicious coffee!

By Scott Pederson