This post celebrates the 7 best Brazilian coffees.
These are my favorite 7 coffees from Brazil right now:
- Caboclo Tradicional Roast & Ground Coffee
- Coffee Bean Direct CO2 Decaf Dark Brazilian Santos Whole Bean
- Cooper’s Cask Brazil Dark & Smooth Espresso Ground Coffee Beans
- City Girl Coffee Blondie Brazil Light Roast
- Peet’s Coffee Brazil Minas Naturais K-Cups
- Pilão Tradicional Roast & Ground Coffee
- Volcanica Brazil Peaberry Coffee
In this post, I describe and review my 7 favorite Brazilian coffees. I’ll also try to educate people a little bit about Brazil’s coffee industry along the way.
About Brazilian Coffee
I know coffee snobs who turn their nose at Brazilian coffee, considering it “light” at best, and only good for low-cost blends at worst.
Basically, I think you ignore quality Brazilian coffee at your own peril.
The best coffees from Brazil have a few specific characteristics:
- big body
- low acid
- caramel/chocolate aromas and flavors
Brazil produces about 1/3 of the world’s total coffee crop, but not all of that is specialty-grade. In fact, most Brazilian coffee is mass-produced and used mainly as a base note in a blend of coffee beans.
Specialty-grade Brazilian coffee is a connoisseur’s dream. Because of the heavy chocolate and burnt-sugar or caramel base notes, the low acid doesn’t detract from or mute the strong roast coffee flavor.
At its best, Brazilian specialty-grade coffee rivals the finest Ethiopian Yirgacheffe or Jamaican Blue Mountain – both also low-acid coffees that deliver a strong flavor profile.
When it’s made just right, even a mass market Brazilian is a solid cup of coffee. Honestly, even the standard Caboclo “big yellow box” stands up to any familiar American coffee brand. You’ll notice I’ve included that coffee on my list.
I enjoy a traditional cafezinho as much as the next guy. If you’re unfamiliar, this traditional Brazilian coffee drink is basically a short coffee spiked with lots of raw sugar. It’s usually made with the kind of mass-produced midgrade coffee described earlier. And it’s delicious – balanced, with a full coffee flavor, and rich with the flavor of sugar cane.
Trust me, you want a coffee that’s mercifully sweet after a night at the barzinho.
The 7 Best Brazilian Coffees (The Best Ground and Whole Bean Coffees from Brazil)
The list below is a mix of convenience products, ground, and whole bean coffees.
There’s a light roast Brazilian coffee in there, as well as a surprisingly delicious decaf Brazilian.
I’ve tried to include something for everyone.
1 – Caboclo Tradicional Roast & Ground Coffee
Café Caboclo is a familiar sight to anyone who’s spent time in Brazil. It’s one of the most familiar brands in-country. The “big yellow box” is a familiar sight from grandmother’s pantry to the shelves of restaurants and pantries of office buildings.
Basically, I’d say Café Caboclo is like the Folger’s of Brazil – except it’s more delicious.
The product itself looks familiar to anyone who’s made a cup of Folger’s coffee. The roast is about the same – a solid medium. The beans are even ground to a similar texture, ideal for use in drip coffee makers.
Caboclo is superior to mass-market American coffees because they use high-quality shade-grown Brazilian beans. Shade-grown beans mature more slowly than those exposed to direct sunlight. This allows more complex flavors to develop.
If you want to try Café Caboclo in a traditional manner, start by boiling unrefined (“raw”) sugar and water together. Remove the mixture from heat as soon as it reaches a rolling boil. Add your ground Café Caboclo. Stir the mixture briskly for about 20 seconds, then filter using your preferred method.
Pick up a few boxes of Caboclo Tradicional Roast & Ground Coffee for an authentic taste of Brazilian coffee culture.
2 – Coffee Bean Direct CO2 Decaf Dark Brazilian Santos Whole Bean
This Brazilian coffee product by Coffee Bean Direct is about as flavorful as a decaf coffee gets. I can vouch for its flavor. As a person who hands-down does not like decaf, I would accept this as a full-caffeine substitute.
It starts with Santos beans. Understand that these aren’t place-specific. Santos is the name of the port where most of Brazil’s gourmet coffee ships from. When you order or use Santos beans, you’re using a blend of the country’s finest coffees.
Generally, Santos beans are “soft,” meaning light on caffeine. These beans are known for producing a coffee with a medium body and low acidity. Their mellow flavor and presentation make Santos beans perfect for a dark roast. A light caffeine content makes it that much easier to convert the coffee into a decaf product.
I found a lot of pleasant fruity notes in my last bag of Coffee Bean Direct CO2 Decaf Dark Brazilian Santos Whole Bean. This probably comes from a blend heavy on low-altitude Santos beans. A bag made from primarily high-altitude beans would present more like dark chocolate and burnt cocoa and have a bit more acidity.
3 – Cooper’s Cask Brazil Dark & Smooth Espresso Ground Coffee Beans
Cooper’s Cask has a wide line of single origin coffees. They each express something a little different. When I was first getting into gourmet coffees, lines like this helped me figure out what I liked, how each cup was subtly different, and how to speak the language of coffee.
Though I knew gourmet Brazilian coffee could produce some impressive characteristics, I was surprised by the bag of Cooper’s Cask Brazil Dark & Smooth Espresso Ground Coffee Beans I sampled recently. It was way more bright and acidic than I expected, with lots of fruit-forward flavors and aromas.
While most Brazilian coffees aren’t ideal for an espresso market, Cooper’s Cask blended, roasted, and designed this product with espresso drinkers in mind.
On cracking the package open, I was immediately hit with a remarkable combo of cream, brown sugar, and a little rosewater. As the machine prepared my espresso, the room filled with a honey-like sweetness, along with deep notes of melted dark chocolate and burnt sugar.
The single-origin Brazilian beans here are decidedly bright with more acid than you’ll usually find from Brazilian coffees. This is perfect for the espresso machine, though I may not enjoy it as much in a drip coffee.
4 – City Girl Coffee Blondie Brazil Light Roast
Not every coffee from Brazil is a dark roast. Sure, the country’s coffee berries have characteristics that lend itself to dark roasts. That’s no reason to avoid light roast Brazilians altogether.
The first coffee that taught me about the indulgence of a light roast Brazilian was this City Girl Coffee Blondie Brazil Light Roast.
I found this coffee by reading one of my favorite coffee blogs. These sites are always a great way to discover new brews.
For starters, remember that light roast coffees generally have higher caffeine levels than medium or dark roast products. That’s part of what makes Blondie Brazil a great breakfast or early-day coffee.
Next, consider that these are about the earth-friendliest beans you can buy. They’re fair trade certified, single-origin, and sourced and produced sustainably. I like that in a coffee product.
But I can’t overlook the incredible flavors found in this brew. Prepared in a traditional French Press, the light roast beans left behind some pleasant but odd flavors. They’re delicate, but as you enjoy a cup or two throughout the morning, your palate will notice them.
I detected hibiscus flower, a hint of pine, and sweet honeysuckle. Other reviewers mention things like strawberry jam and gingerbread. Whatever the real notes are here, they’re not your typical dark fruits and chocolates of quality Brazilian coffee beans.
5 – Peet’s Coffee Brazil Minas Naturais K-Cups
The truth is most of us lead busy lives. If you want your Brazilian coffee in a convenient format, check out Peet’s Coffee Brazil Minas Naturais K-Cups.
While I much prefer a drip coffee, or iced coffee made Japanese-style, some mornings I’m in a rush and have to rely on K-cups.
If you’re going to use a super convenient product, you may as well use one that tastes really good.
Peet’s makes this coffee product from Minas Gerais beans. These beans are consistently the best-rated in South America. They’re produced in a traditional manner which includes drying in the direct sun. This drying process introduces a natural sweetness to the beans that comes through in the coffee.
6 – Pilão Tradicional Roast & Ground Coffee
Pilão Tradicional is, like Café Caboclo, a mainstay of Brazilian supermarket shelves and home pantries. The big difference between Café Caboclo and Pilão Tradicional is the roast and grind.
While Café Caboclo is a solid medium roast, Pilão Tradicional is a heavy dark roast, bordering on French roast. The difference in flavor is all about that difference in the roast. Pilão Tradicional brings out the darker side of Brazilian coffee – burnt caramel, dark cocoa powder, etc.
Pilão Tradicional Roasted & Ground Coffee is a coffee you can brew in the traditional method, pop into a drip coffee maker, or prepare in an espresso machine.
The super-dark roast holds up as an espresso. It can also produce a heady traditional drip coffee that practically demands milk or cream.
7 – Volcanica Brazil Peaberry Coffee
Brazilian caracol coffee is world-famous. Called peaberries in the US, caracol beans are mutations that occur naturally. Basically, a caracol (Spanish for “snail”) is a spoiled child, a single bean growing where two normally grow.
First, know that peaberry coffee beans are over-nourished. That makes them denser, sweeter, and more flavorful than their non-mutated cousins.
Also, peaberry beans are an almost perfect circle. A circle shape makes for a more efficient and flavorful roast.
Volcanica Brazil Peaberry Coffee is made entirely from caracol coffee beans grown on the famous Santana Estate. Roasted to a true medium, flavors normally hidden deep inside Brazilian coffee emerge. There’s a nuttiness to this blend that’s unique among gourmet Brazilians I’ve tried.
Smooth but still intensely flavorful, Volcanica’s Brazil Peaberry Coffee highlights what’s great about gourmet Brazilian coffee – variety and depth of flavor.
Conclusion
Though we usually think of Brazil as a coffee producer, Brazilians are the largest consumer of coffee in the world.
Brazilian coffee culture is a world unto itself. It’s pointless to lump all Brazilian coffee in with the famous cafezinho. While that drink is a big part of coffee in Brazil, it doesn’t reflect the entirety of Brazilian coffee consumption.
I hope you try a few coffees from my list and expand your coffee horizons to include the excellent beans of Brazil.