From the very beginning

Aequitas was born from the 4th generation of coffee producers, which is part of my family’s history since the arrival of my ancestors from Japan to Brazil, in the end of the 1920’s. We’ve been producing coffee in the region of São Gotardo, Cerrado Mineiro since 1975.

In the beginning I did not realize how coffee was so relevant in my life. Working in multinational agribusiness companies in São Paulo was a professional and personal goal that I have achieved years later, after leaving São Gotardo for undergraduate school. However, I felt that those companies didn’t offer me the opportunity of doing something that resulted in a noticeable positive impact in people’s lives. At the same time, I started assisting my father in the cooperative's little roasting unit with market analysis, did some coffee courses in São Paulo and, gradually, the dormant passion for coffee came to life. In 2014, I left this metropolis and I went back to my hometown to help in the family business.

Since then the focus has been leading projects in coffee traceability, post-harvesting techniques for coffee quality's improvements, farm certifications and pursuing a new dream: reaching the specialty coffee market and sharing the family's and other producers' stories behind a cup of coffee. This dream has become a mean of honoring not only our ancestors' bravery but also each coffee tree that contributed to our prosperity until the present day.

The present

For more than 40 years our product has been traded following the traditional path: Farmer > Cooperative > Middleman > Exporter > Importer > Roaster > Coffee shop > Consumer.

In August 2015, this logic changed. A specialty coffee roaster and Q-grader cupped our coffee that, for our surprise, achieved an 86 SCA score. It was so unbelievable and we asked other 3 Q-graders to cup our coffee samples. They all provided similar results. Since then we started to sell our precious green beans to roasters and coffee shops. This finding made us fell empowered and gave us the confidence in achieving a market that values coffee in a different way. In May 2016 we exported a container loaded of specialty coffee – with lots ranging from 82 to 87 – to an importer in Europe and in the same year we were awarded as a Cup of Excellence National Winner in Naturals category.

After those achievements we have thought: why not doing the same for other producers in our region? Today, 48 years after my father’s arrival to this land, I have the opportunity of making a difference in the local and global coffee community.