Ethica Espresso

About the Coffee

Cachoeira Farm in Cerrado Mineiro, Brazil has been in the Barbosa family for over a century. Danilo Barbosa's great-grandfather, Elias Barbosa, started the operation, and it passed through his grandfather Claudio and his father Jairo before reaching Danilo. Today, Danilo runs the farm alongside his sons Vítor Marcelo and Sergio Ricardo, with a team of ten people based in Carmo do Paranaíba, Minas Gerais. The farm grows Red Catuai at 1,100 meters.

The Barbosa family uses a full traceability program that tracks coffee from individual trees through to the warehouse. Their Quality Control Team monitors every stage of harvesting and processing. The coffee is naturally processed, meaning the whole cherry dries around the bean before milling, which takes longer but requires less water and allows the fruit to influence the final cup. Cerrado Mineiro's dry season, with its lower humidity and cooler temperatures, creates ideal conditions for this kind of slow, careful drying.

Ethica sources this coffee through their green bean importer Orange Brown, a partnership they describe as central to what this espresso represents. The relationship with the importer gives Ethica direct access to farm-level information and consistent supply from a producer they know well.

About Ethica Coffee Roasters

Ethica Coffee Roasters takes its name from the philosopher Baruch Spinoza's Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata, a 17th-century work exploring how aligning actions with reason and virtue leads to a better life. That framing shapes how the Toronto-based roaster approaches sourcing: their goal is for every decision, from choosing green beans to how coffee is brewed and served, to reflect the same ethical standards the name implies.

Ethica puts significant weight on the people behind the coffee. They document farmer stories alongside each coffee they sell and treat sourcing relationships as long-term commitments rather than one-off transactions. Their in-house team includes trained baristas and Q graders who oversee roasting and brewing consistency, and they offer public cupping sessions and coffee courses at their cafes for customers who want to understand more about what's in their cup.

"There is an Ethica coffee that stands out in my mind - a Washed Castillo from Wilton Benitez that had rosemary as a tasting note. Yes, rosemary. I remember looking at that tasting note in disbelief, and then experiencing about the same disbelief by how much I loved the rosemary flavour!"

- Dean, Director of Coffee