Aequitas

Minas Gerais, Cerrado Mineiro, Sao Gotardo, Brazil

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Partner since: 2017 Traceable to: 4 Families: Minami, Tamekuni, Assis and Takiuti Altitude: 1130 - 1350 MASL

Supplier Structure:

Natural processed; cherries are floated then dried 7-10 days on patio, until 15-16% moisture, supported by mechanical dryers if needed down to 11.5% before resting in warehouse.

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harvest

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Community Context

Cerrado Mineiro in Minas Gerais is a high-altitude savannah best known as Brazil’s “carrot capital,” also producing garlic, onions, potatoes—and, since the 1970s, coffee. For decades, quality coffee from this region was bulked and sold as commodity. That began to change when a younger generation returned to explore specialty.

One of those farmers is Yuki Minami, who came back to her family’s Fazenda Santo Antonio to focus on quality improvements and better prices. She later added a second farm, Olhos D’Água, just down the road. In 2016, Yuki joined with neighboring producers—third-generation Japanese-Brazilian farmers including Edson Tamekuni and Michael Tomizawa—to form Aequitas Coffee, exporting their first lots with us in 2018.

Aequitas takes its name from the Roman goddess of equity, reflecting Yuki’s focus on justice, transparency, and fairness in trade. Her leadership has been instrumental not only in our ability to work in Brazil, but in creating a platform for her community to move into specialty.

At the farm level, she has invested in raised beds, post-harvest training, and new processing techniques. Ahead of the 2023 harvest, Yuki worked with post-harvest consultant Dr. Giselle Abreu to refine drying methods, trial yeast fermentations, and experiment with large-tank and layered drying approaches—early steps in an ongoing push for innovation.

Country Context

Brazil is the world’s largest coffee producer, responsible for nearly half of global supply and the benchmark against which international prices are set. Its sheer scale has long defined its reputation—an origin associated with consistency and volume rather than distinction.

But over the past decade or so, that reputation has begun to shift. A younger generation of farmers—often college-educated, internet-connected, and returning from city life—are pushing for quality and experimentation. Their parents, who built livelihoods on the commodity model, remain reasonably cautious—not necessarily agreeing upon the upside of taking risks with a system that has largely worked for decades. This intergenerational tension is playing out across Brazil, as new approaches to processing, drying, and marketing meet the inertia of established success.

Rather than a sudden shift, the argument for specialty is being made pragmatically—through results that families can measure, premiums they can count, and recognition they can see. In places like São Gotardo, organizations such as Yuki Minami’s Aequitas Coffee are supporting this transition, equipping younger farmers to see not just what they produce, but what it can be worth in differentiated markets.

At the same time, Brazil remains the anchor of the global coffee economy. Weather events, currency moves, and policy shifts here reverberate outward, shaping supply and pricing worldwide. The volatility of the current tariff environment underscores that influence, adding instability and risk to a market already balancing scale with the slow but growing promise of specialty.