FLAVOUR STABILITY AT ITS Finest

Quality and consistency. It's not easy when you're a farmer, with changing weather and different circumstances on a yearly or even seasonal basis, to match the exact same flavor profile as last year. It might even be impossible. For this reason, the team of Q-graders of Capricornio Coffees cup all the coffees of the more than a dozen partner fazendas and farmer groups, grade them according to their flavor and quality, and then make farmer blends solely based on taste. For example, the Timbó Signature blend is described as dark chocolate with a sweet and thick round body. One year, this might consist of more coffee from farm A than farm B. The year after, this might be the other way around.

Farm composition in the coffee bag might change, but the farms don't sit still. Being part of Capricornio's Four Seasons Project, they get free agronomical support, with an agronomist visiting them every 60 days. Together, they look at plant and soil health and do soil measurements that advise which parts of the farms need extra attention. It's high-end knowledge and solid partnership to provide a sustainable future.

Since 2017, we have been working with the Signature lines. They have proven to be the stable factor of many roasters and cafés for either blends or singles. However, in 2022 we designed a program to achieve the flavour stability we seek while only sourcing from the same partners year on year in our trusted Capricornio network: São Jerónimo da Serra, Mulheres do Café Matão, Fazenda Fronteira and Fazenda California.

CULTIVARS

Red Bourbon, Yellow Bourbon, Red Catuai, Yellow Catuai, Obatã, Topázio, Arara, Red Icatu, Grape (IAC 125), Acaiá, Ouro Verde, IAPAR and Mundo Novo.

Elevation

450 - 1,200 meters.

NOTABLE

Signatures are blends created in origin for flavour stability. Ours are fully traceable and derive from a mix of the four unique relationships we have with our partners from Capricornio: Fazenda California, Fazenda Fronteira, Mulheres do Café Matão, and the group of smallholder farmers of São Jerônimo da Serra. We offer three Relationships lines: the Timbó (used to be Dulce) for its chocolate thick sweetness, the Pioneiro (used to be Sorocabana) for its nut and cream notes, and the Límpido (previously Piraju) for its less thick but pleasantly sweet dried fruits.

PROCESSING

Signatures lots are machine picked, blends of pulped natural and natural processed fazenda lots, patio and machine dried, dry milled with great eye for detail with state-of-the-art equipment before carefully cupped by qualified graders and combined and calibrated for annual consistency.

Cupping Notes

2025 HARVEST

Capricornio -Timbó signature blend-honey

Carpicornio Límpido signature blend - honey

Capricornio Pioneiro signature blend - honey

Capricornio - mokinha signature blend - honey

The price you pay for Signature blend Mokhina lines p/kg. We agreed on this price directly with the farmers, disregarding the volatile US Coffee C price. The blends are curated by the Q grading team of Capricornio purely on flavours.
Farmgate is calculated based on the proportions of coffees used to create the blend. It is assumed that farm gate paid to farmers for single lot is fixed with the only variation being the amount of coffees per blend.
Capricornio’s costs are lower than what they incurred for the singles since the costs associated to sorting loss are lower for blends. The rest of the expenses borne by Capricornio were for grain pro, training and exporting coffees to the Netherlands. This is also includes the projected Margins Capricornio makes on these coffees.
International shipping from Santos, Brazil to Rotterdam, Netherlands. It is inclusive of customs, insurance and warehousing costs.
Average financing cost owed to (mostly social) lenders. This ensures immediate payment to the farmers when the coffee leaves the farm or port. It includes storage, risk fees and our profit.
A standard TSU premium on all coffees designated exclusively to accelerate farmers’ own regenerative agriculture projects. Read about the work done by Capricornio on creating an integrated pest management.
This Side Up compensation for spending time and resources importing this coffee. Our work includes year-round contact with producers, managing export, shipping, import, warehousing, grading, sampling, finding and keeping roasting partners for Capricornio. € 1,22 is This Side Up’s Model 1 markup. For a full overview of our modular margin construction, see the Trade Models page.

Key Achievements

2017: production of the Signature lots begins for This Side Up partner and roasters.
2018: The signatures lot become a round success in Europe. We experience a high demand for these very special lots.
2019: Capricornio becomes our biggest supplier. The tailor-made blended lots for roasters turn into a resounding success.
2020: the full traceability reports created per individual Signature blend take us a step forward toward full transparency. In these documents, we learn how much the fazendas contributed in which year to which farmers blended.
2021: after Maarten's visit and on-site calibration of the coffees, now focusing on three different blends: the Dulce for sweet, thick chocolate and caramel; the Sorocabana for round nutty flavors; and the Piraju for dried berries and a less thick body.
2022: Signatures now come from an all new “Relationship Line” from Capricornio, established jointly with TSU to show the independence of the C-market. The signatures have been renamed to celebrate this change.
2023: Continuation of the successful “Relationship Line”, which this year even sold out before the coffee landed in Europe. When visiting the producers in May, TSU is thanked for holding up its promise of providing a direct roaster link.