Brazil Arabica (Santos)

Santos NY 2/3, screen 17/18, natural & pulped natural

Brazil is roughly a third of world coffee production and its Santos-marked arabica is the reference physical against which the ICE "C" contract is most often traded. Lots are contracted on a short, well-understood sheet: defect count on the New York scale — NY 2 permits about 6 full defects per 300 g sample, NY 3 about 13 — screen size, normally 17/18 for the export grades with 14/16 moving as a cheaper cut, moisture at 10–12%, water activity at or below 0.60, and a cup descriptor, usually "fine cup", "good cup" or "strictly soft". Process is predominantly natural (dried in the cherry) or pulped natural, both of which give the heavy body, low acidity and chocolate-and-nut sweetness that make Brazil the workhorse base of commercial espresso. Ship weight is the classic 60 kg jute bag, with bulk container liners at around 21.6 MT for volume programmes.

Buy Brazil when you need dependable body and sweetness at the lowest arabica differential available, which is most commercial blending: espresso bases, filter blends where a washed origin supplies the acidity, private-label retail roasting and soluble manufacture. What it will not give you is the bright, clean acidity of a washed Colombian or the floral character of an Ethiopian — for those you pay a materially higher differential and you should, because the cup is genuinely different. The two things to be disciplined about are crop year and screen. Brazilian coffee ages faster in a hot origin than buyers expect, so past-crop lots trade at a discount for good reason; and a lot sold as 17/18 that screens 15/16 is a downgrade that costs you both in the roaster and in the cup. CBIL brokers Brazilian arabica against independent verification of defect count, screen distribution, moisture, water activity and cup grade, quoted as a differential to the ICE "C", on FOB Santos, CFR and CIF terms.