Danilo Barbosa

About the Coffee

The Barbosa family has been farming in Brazil's Cerrado Mineiro region since the early 1900s. The tradition started with Danilo's great-grandfather Elias Barbosa and passed through his son Claudio before reaching Danilo's father, Jairo Barbosa de Paula. In 1979, Danilo took over the family operation. Today, Danilo's wife Imaculada and their sons Vitor Marcelo and Sergio Ricardo all work on the farms alongside extended family. The Barbosa farms cover 3,322 hectares in total, with 983 hectares in active coffee production and over 1,000 hectares set aside as protected natural reserves. The farms sit between 950 and 1,100 meters above sea level.

In 2018, Danilo shifted the business toward specialty coffee production. A key part of that shift was bringing in Deyvid Leandro, a local producer with over 20 years of experience, whose focus is on Q-grading (a formal coffee quality scoring system), quality control, and fermentation. That collaboration paid off quickly: the Barbosa family won the Brazilian Cup of Excellence in both 2021 and 2024, which is one of the most competitive coffee awards in the world. Cerrado Mineiro itself carries some weight here too. It holds Brazil's first Designation of Origin for coffee, a geographic certification similar to what you'd find with French wine appellations, recognizing the region's consistent quality and distinct growing conditions.

The Cerrado Mineiro sits across the states of Minas Gerais and Goiás in central Brazil. Its tropical savanna climate brings clearly defined wet and dry seasons, which help regulate how the coffee cherries develop and dry. The region's well-defined seasons and moderate altitude give producers a reliable, predictable growing environment year to year. The Barbosa family's commitment to keeping over 1,000 hectares as natural reserves reflects a real balance between production and environmental preservation, with all reserve areas legally certified.

About Eclipse

Eclipse Coffee Roasters was founded in 2014 in Canmore, Alberta. They roast to order, meaning the coffee ships fresh rather than sitting in a warehouse, and they carry between 10 and 15 different coffees at any one time, ranging from lighter African origins to heavier blends.

On the sourcing side, every coffee Eclipse carries goes through an independent screening process to check both environmental and social practices at the farm level. They pay above market price for their single origin coffees, with the stated goal of supporting farm development and local communities in the regions they buy from. Their approach has earned them multiple awards in roasting competitions across North America.