Coffee color

A few kilometers from the mythical Camino Real, the road of Brazilian coffee remains intact, still stuck deep in the halfway Sao Paulo and Rio valley. The opportunity to plunge us into the fantastic time when Brazil acheminait this precious gold in the 4 corners of the world. First mule to Paraty, then by ship to Portugal. Coffee growing has experienced tremendous growth from 1800. Before-garde but also very clever, Brazilian farmers began to get excited about the precious bean since 1730. When the king Dom Joao VI ruled Brazil is he gave a real boost to this culture, ordering the planting of vast fields and related fazendas construction. A Catuçaba, coffee remains omnipresent. Please the eye and taste buds. Cocoa aromas and wallflowers. Although sugarcane gradually replacing coffee, competition from other regions.

On horseback, you will go for long rides to conquer the mountain. Maybe you’ll be lucky to find you, like me, face to face with the Jacu, the bird of the best coffee producer in the world.

Yet I failed to understand anything! A horse with the Portuguese guide who accompanies me, it stops me insistently in front of a coffee plant. I think I recognize that this is a bourbon. It makes me squirm to show me a curious bird, the red nose blood. He speaks English kitchen and gives me burst the same three words: “bird”, “shit,” and “best coffee”. I look at him, a bit taken aback, wondering if he did not abuse the Cachaça, and after 10 minutes of discussion that has neither head nor tail, we leave. I read on his face despite his view that we did not understand.

This conversation is working me. I understand by conducting some research in the coming days as the Jacu, it made me observe, is a bird that loves ripe coffee cherries. Greedy, he only chooses the best and prefers yellow cherry red. Once the Jacu ingested cherry, it eliminates the digested grain, which remains among his droppings under the coffee trees. These beads are then dried, washed and preserved in their shells for about three months. And Brazilian, who saw from the Jacu as a predator, see him as the gatherer most effective.

Coffee “Jacu bird” is a strong coffee whose flavor is not found in any other coffee in the world. And it takes several tens of euros to enjoy a cup in the best institutions in the world …