BRAZIL - Rio Brilhante

The Flavour Profile

There's something comforting about a coffee that tastes like a treat. Our Brazil - Rio Brilhante is a medium roast natural process coffee with warm hazelnut, milk chocolate and rich caramel running through every cup — the kind of flavour that makes you want to slow down and actually enjoy your coffee break. Grown at 1,150 metres in the warm, stable climate of Cerrado Mineiro, the Yellow Catuai variety here ripens steadily into a naturally sweet, full-bodied bean. The natural process — where the whole cherry dries around the bean — locks that sweetness in, and the medium roast brings it all together, softening any brightness and turning up the chocolate, caramel and toasted nut notes instead.

The body is smooth and full, with a gentle sweetness that coats the palate without ever feeling heavy. Balanced, comforting, and endlessly drinkable.

Drinking it black? Expect toasted hazelnut up front, softening into chocolate and caramel through the middle, with a clean, rounded finish. Lovely through an espresso machine, cafetière, or AeroPress.

Drinking it with milk? This is where it really shines. Milk brings out the caramel sweetness and rounds the hazelnut into something smooth and indulgent. Perfect for a flat white, latte or cappuccino.

A true single origin from Cerrado Mineiro, freshly roasted to order by Nick in our roastery, just outside Canterbury — never sitting on a shelf. Buy a kilo and save 10%, and we grind it free for however you brew.

The Little Details

Brazil - Rio Brilhante comes from Fazenda Rio Brilhante, a large family-owned farm run by Inacio Carlos Urban in the town of Coromandel, in the Cerrado Mineiro region of Minas Gerais. Grown at 1,150 metres above sea level in a warm, stable climate, the farm spans 11,092 hectares with 1,562 hectares dedicated to coffee, growing Yellow Catuai — the variety behind this cup's natural sweetness and body — alongside Bourbon, Topázio, Arara and Paraíso. That combination of moderate altitude and steady climate gives the cherries time to ripen evenly, building the sugars that come through so clearly once roasted. The coffee is Rainforest Alliance, Regenagri and 4C certified, and is naturally processed for a clean, sweet cup.

About the Process

At Rio Brilhante, cherries are picked once fully ripe, then carefully sorted and floated in water — any that rise to the surface, underripe or damaged, are removed before processing even begins.

Because this is a natural process coffee, nothing is stripped away at this stage. The whole cherry — skin, fruit and all — goes straight to drying, usually spread across raised beds or patios where the sun and air do the work. This is where the magic happens: as the fruit slowly dries around the bean over one to three weeks, sugars from the cherry are absorbed into the seed itself, building the sweetness and body that give natural process coffees their signature richness.

Throughout drying, the cherries are turned regularly to dry evenly and avoid any mould or fermentation defects — a job that takes patience and a careful eye. Once the moisture content is right, the dried cherries move to milling, where the fruit and parchment are removed to reveal the green coffee bean underneath, then graded for size and quality.

It's a slower, more hands-on process than washed coffee — but it's exactly why this cup tastes the way it does. From a farm of over 11,000 hectares down to the single hazelnut-and-caramel cup in your hands, every step at Rio Brilhante was about bringing out the natural sweetness already inside the bean.