Macaw Coffee — Sustainable Specialty Coffee from Brazil

Why we are different

Genuinely enjoyable

The coffee has to stand on its own before any story is told. We want people to choose it for the quality, and stay for what's behind it. Pleasure and meaning, no trade-offs.

Conscious consumption, from bean to cup

Every step is chosen with the same care. Farms that leave soil, water and biodiversity stronger each year. Pricing that reflects the skill behind the coffee. Roasting and packaging partners who share the standard. And cups from Earthshot Prize winner Notpla, so a daily ritual quietly supports better choices from the soil all the way to your hand.

Farmers first

Our journey begins with the farmers, our primary partners in quality and regeneration. We name them, celebrate them and pay a price that reflects their skill. Every bag is traceable to the farm, the harvest and the hands that grew it. Downstream, we choose who serves our coffee just as carefully: partners who care how it was grown.

The system, not the metric

A farm should function as a living system where soil, water, carbon and biodiversity reinforce each other, held together by the people who farm it.

We define the standard first, then find the farms already doing this work, and those ready to meet it. The standard covers land and people equally: a living ecosystem, and a fairly paid community. Certification is the baseline, and our farms hold it. What it cannot show is how a place is actually run, so we look for evidence on the ground, in close relationship with the farmers who grow it.

Today we work with farms that already meet the standard. Our intent is to help others reach it.

Origination

Our farms and farmers

Our farms and our farmers we learn from and celebrate.

Fazenda Água da Mata

Zito · Garça, São Paulo · 700m

The farm

A family farm run by Zito, who took it over from his father. It sits at 700m in Garça, an origin recognised in 2022 with a Geographical Indication, Brazil's mark of a recognised coffee region. It is not a monoculture: alongside coffee they grow other crops and several coffee varieties.

How it's grown

More than a third of the farm is native forest, replanted with threatened native species including pau-brasil, the tree the country is named after. A waterfall and natural springs sit inside the land, and overflow from the reservoir is piped back to feed them, so the farm sustains its own water. Fertiliser is made on site from composted manure, coffee husk and leaves. Tall ipê trees ring the farm as a windbreak, and part of the operation runs on solar.

Fazenda Três Meninas

Paula Curiacos and Marcelo Urtado · Monte Carmelo, Cerrado Mineiro · 1,050m

The farm

A small farm named after three women. Marcelo, an agronomist, and Paula, a zootechnician, bought the land and named it for the three women of the family: Paula and the couple's two daughters. Regenagri and Rainforest Alliance certified through Expocacer, the first coffee cooperative in the world to earn the regenerative seal.

How it's grown

The soil is never left bare, always covered by living plants or mulch. Rows of trees cross the coffee, drawing the insects that keep pests down and casting shade over the crop, with more than 11,500 planted to rebuild the canopy. Native stingless bees are kept between the rows as a living instrument: bees don't stay where a system is failing. A study with monteCCer and Imaflora recorded a negative carbon balance of 5.47 tonnes per hectare, placing the farm among the 5% most sustainable in the world.

Fazenda Honeybee

Rafael and Maíra · Ilicínea, Minas Gerais · 1,300m

The farm

A farm built around its water and its bees, run by Rafael and Maíra in Ilicínea. The plot we buy from has something special underfoot: the soil is rocky and highly permeable, so the land itself filters its water. And Honey Coffee lives up to the name. Walk between the rows and the whole place hums with bees working the flowers.

How it's grown

Rain filters through the rock and runs clean into the river, and with the proper permits that same water irrigates the coffee in the rainy season. Fertiliser comes from the farm and its neighbours: chicken and cattle manure composted with coffee husk, nothing from outside that could harm the water. Cover crops and living soil sit between the rows instead of bare earth, protecting the structure that makes the filtration work.

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Suruí

Paiter Suruí · Terra Indígena Sete de Setembro, Rondônia · 300–500m

The farm

Coffee grown as an act of reclamation. In 1969, colonisers made first contact with the Paiter Suruí, killed many of their ancestors and planted coffee on the land they took. In 1983, when the territory was demarcated and returned, the Suruí made a deliberate choice: to keep growing that same crop, fully aware of where it came from, as an instrument of reforestation.

How it's grown

The coffee grows between cacao and cashew trees, planted for the shade they cast and for their place in Suruí culture, and that shapes the flavour in the cup. Celeste Suruí, Brazil's first Indigenous barista, represents the territory's coffee today, sold under the name Café Sarikab.