Brazilian Monte Alegre
Brazilian Monte Alegre Filter Roast
Here we have it! Our latest £5 retail bag to keep tasty coffee affordable at home. It’s not that the coffees we chose for this are cheap, they are very drinkable and I would happily drink them at home too. We have drunk a good kilo of Monte Alegre in the roastery over the last 10 days too.
We haven’t bought coffee from Monte Alegre in some years, but sometimes, we need to ensure that we don’t run out of simply great-tasting, easy-drinking Brazilian coffees. I was (and to a degree am) really pleased at how Monte Alegre has improved It could be my memory not serving me well or the fact that processing has taken some real leaps forward over the last years.
TOP TRUMPS
Farm: Monte Alegre Coffees
Region; Areado, Minas Gerais, South Minas
Owners: The Vieira Family
Farm Size: 300 Acres
Process: Natural.
Varietals: Bourbon
Altitude: 900 to 1,200 meters above sea level
Roast: Light-Medium Filter. Very extractable as espresso.
Cup profile
Aromatics: Chocolatey and sweet| Body; Medium| Acidity; Low and sweet.|
Monte Alegre is an easy-drinking, sweet, super tasty, archetypical Brazilian coffee. Dark chocolate and brown sugars on opening, with a promise of stone fruit on cooling. After a little while, the fruit comes to the fore, but it’s not like drinking fruit juice, “just” a sweet, uncomplicated easy-drinking filter, with a backbone of dark chocolate.
Filter Recipe: Start with 60g per litre, through V60, Aeropress, and batch.
Such an easy and forgiving coffee to brew.
Espresso
I wasn’t expecting this to work in espresso but it is an easy coffee to brew.
Espresso recipe: 16-18g Coffee 94C 45-50g 28-33 seconds
Milk-based recipe: 16-18g of coffee into 34-35g of espresso 25-30 seconds. This easily works in a 9oz, if you are a drinker of milk in coffee. I think there is a big chance that this will even work with oat milk…I need to try.
Farm Info
Some 105 years ago, The Vieira Family bought Fazenda Monte Alegre, as an existing coffee farm. If you follow the link here, there is a great picture of some old cars at the front of the main estate house. I don’t know about you, but the evolution of coffee production fascinates me. Historically the farm has produced a number of other crops from sugarcane to beef.
In recent times, coffee quality at Monte Alegre has become a focus as this is where the value is. Besides value, quality is something that everyone in the chain is proud of.
You could share your brews with us here:
and