Sítio Grotão is a 52 hectare coffee farm located in Poço Fundo, south east of Minas Gerais. Vanderson Caliari Alves is an active member of the local cooperative COOPFAM, Cooperativa dos Agricultores Familiares de Poço Fundo, founded in 2003. Family has always been a core value amongst the coffee producers of the area, who started to look for ways of improving their lifes as early as 1980. Together, they created a “cooperative of people, made for and by people”. They work together to improve all aspects around the production of coffee: from the culture of the trees to the production process and the communities.
Vanderson has been experimenting with a few new processing techniques in the last years with one goal, sublimate the terroir in his coffee. To produce his natural process with anaerobic fermentation, Vanderson places the freshly-picked cherries in sealed tanks for 144 hours (6 days) before letting them dry for 30 days. The anaerobic environment activates the natural fermentation of the pulp and gives the coffee its unique aromas and sweetness.