Brazil Jacu Bird Natural Coffee

A rare coffee from Espírito Santo, Brazil, made from cherries eaten by wild jacu birds on a farm called Camocim. The beans are collected from the birds' droppings, then dried, sorted and hulled. The cup is bright and acidic, with a fruity, floral aroma and a sweet aniseed aftertaste.

Origin & Story

This coffee begins with a bird. The jacu is a wild forest bird, and on one farm in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo, called Camocim, the birds roam among the coffee trees and eat the ripest cherries they can find.

They digest the fruit, and the beans pass through. Workers collect the droppings, and once the beans are dried they are sorted and hulled like any other coffee. The idea is the same as civet coffee in Indonesia, but the setup is very different. The jacus here are wild and free, while civet coffee has been widely criticized because the animals are often kept in cages.

The farm's owner, Henrique Sloper, says the birds work as selectors and as a harvest alarm, since they go for the cherries only when they are properly ripe. A coffee specialist who has tasted it says the benefit comes from that selection, not from the digestion, which does not chemically improve the flavor.

Very little is made. Jacu coffee is under two percent of the farm's output, and in Brazil it sells for about 1,118 reais a kilogram, around $100 a pound, a price that climbs further when it is exported.

In the cup it is a clear, bright coffee, with a fruity, floral aroma and a sweet aniseed aftertaste. A French press suits it. Use water at 93°C, a medium-coarse grind and 14.4 g of coffee for a 240 ml cup, and press after four minutes.

Reading the Flavor Profile

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