2023-07-16 15:06:52
On volcanic soil, the region stands out for its quality in the cup, but mainly for its passion for producing quality coffee.
If you follow the coffee sector in Brazil more closely, you will know that the country maintains its tradition and from generation to generation, the fields are taken over by families that have survived from the activity for decades. But, you may have also heard about the stories of those who “fell from a parachute” into this universe and decided, from there, to write a new story in their own trajectory.
Today’s Entrelinhas will tell one of these stories. We went personally to visit the Vale do Grama region, 154 kilometers from Campinas, we spent a day getting to know up close some of the stories that make coffee growing in the region happen.
Two hours of travel to reach the coffee plantations that are located on a kind of plateau between two mountain ranges in the Serra da Mantiqueira. São Sebastião da Grama is part of a volcanic region, an area known for its potential in the production of specialty coffees.
As for the quality of the drink, Valdir Duarte – the coffee producer who opened the doors of the property to our team, doesn’t beat around the bush: “Our soil does everything. We have altitude and the producer needs to be careful in the post-harvest so as not to lose what he receive it right away”, he said between one street and another in the mountains of the Valley.
Valdir’s story, however, is one of those that happens to start with coffee growing. Graduated in information technology and with a solid career in the area, it was through his wife’s family, Lourdes (in memory) that he got to know coffee production more closely.
He says that the family arrived in the region even before the municipality was named São Sebastião da Grama, when his wife’s great-grandfather – Fortunato Bernarde, arrived in Brazil from Italy, built a big house and a house for each child, in the 1900s. “There had already been properties in the Valley since 1871. That’s how it went and my wife’s grandfather took over part of the Santo Antônio farm, maintaining coffee production”, he comments.
Between meeting his wife and coffee, Valdir gradually began to help the family manage the farm, still far from field activities. “But since I was born in the countryside (in Presidente Prudente/SP), I already have that love for the land in my family, but there it was the land of peanuts and cotton and here I saw the world of coffee. And I started to buy some properties from some of my wife’s aunts and I started running the cafes. By the time I retired and came here, it was already a land that I loved”, he says.
Together with his wife, who was born in the city, but who went to São Paulo to study and meet Valdir, they began to look at coffee shops in a different way. In the 2000s, the Associação do Vale da Grama was born – which he is currently president of, and the history of specialty coffees began to change.
“I started to learn how to deal with coffees because until then I had only managed them. I learned a lot from my brother-in-law who used traditional methods and he learned. Here at Vale da Grama we have something that is very important for us small producers, which is sharing our information we have”, he comments.
Valdir says that partnerships like Senar and Sebrae were crucial for the advancement of coffee production in the region. For some years now, production in the region has stood out in the search for quality and the results in the competitions resulted in the request for Geographical Indication, recently filed by Vale da Grama.
“Coffee has a market for everyone. From commodities to specials. We treat micro-lots with care and the others, we also consider quality issues, but this one we deliver to the local market and to cooperatives”, he adds.
While waiting for the INPI to return, Valdir explains that work continues to explain to the local community the importance of the GI and how the seal can help leverage business in the region. “Coffee Vale da Grama becomes known nationally and internationally. The producers are already part of this IG, what they will need is to follow a specification book that will determine the quality standards for Vale da Grama, which is not difficult because the soil already produces special coffee, we cannot spoil what the soil has done”, he adds.
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