Sul de Minas

Sul de Minas, the southern portion of Minas Gerais, is the single most productive coffee region in Brazil and therefore one of the most significant in the world, accounting for a large share of the country's enormous output. Unlike the mechanised flatlands of the Cerrado, much of Sul de Minas is rolling hill country worked by family farms between about 700 and 1,400 metres. Predominantly natural and pulped-natural Mundo Novo, Catuaí, and Yellow Bourbon, the coffees are sweet and approachable — milk chocolate, hazelnut, caramel, and a soft, rounded body — that anchor both commercial blends and a growing tier of traceable specialty micro-lots. Its sheer volume gives Sul de Minas outsized influence on global coffee prices.