Discover Sitio Boa Vista

Alessandro Alves Hervaz and his family have been growing coffee since 1993. They currently have 2 small properties: Sitio Esperanca and Sitio Diogo. They also lease 3 other small farms: Sitio Grotao, Sitio Boa Vista and Fazenda Fortaleza, where he lives, making it a total of 19 hectares of land only. They operate as a Family Farm, the title given to small farms owned and operated primarily by members of a single family.

As a member of APAS – Association of Producers from Alto da Serra – he works closely with other small producers, focused on specialty and natural coffee only. Since 2013, they started to peel the coffee beans, drying them in suspended yards and putting them into greenhouses. At first, Mr Hervaz admits that it all seemed impossible to be done, but thanks to his family’s hard work they are now proving that selected coffees result in a high quality product. They were even surprised by the new notes and flavors he found on his coffees. Flavors that they couldn’t even imagine it existed, and they keep working on always raising their standards.

At Sitio Boa Vista, Alessandro created a special micro-lot called Honey & Coffee, where the production is completely pollinated by bees. This coffee represents the beautiful work they do with beekeeping in the coffee properties, always aiming to improve quality and variety of their products.

Why have you decided to produce specialty coffee? – we asked Alessandro.

“Most of the farmers will say that the reason why they produce specialty coffee is to be able to sell it for a higher price, I don’t think this reason is wrong as the producers need to receive a fair payment. A special coffee is produced by a special farmer and he needs to be rewarded for that. However, what motivates farmers from APAS to make specialty coffee is not only the aggregated value on our product, but to know who is buying our coffee and where in the world are people drinking it. It is really rewarding to a small coffee farmer to know that his name is being printed in coffee bags around the world. It makes us very proud and even more passionate for what we do. Over the past years, we’ve been receiving many positive feedback and we hope a lot of roasters out there can buy our coffee and help us spread the story behind coffees and farmers from APAS over the globe.”

Thank you, Alessandro! We from Minas Hill Coffee also feel very proud to be able to bring such a special coffee to Australia!

For more information about APAS, contact us via our Contact Form.