Rain arrived at exactly the wrong point and flattened almost everything we tasted from Cerrado. We bought a fraction of our usual volume and paid the agreed price on it anyway.

That is the part of a long relationship nobody advertises. The years where the coffee is thin are the years the arrangement actually gets tested.

It would have been easy to renegotiate down, or to walk for a season and come back when the crop recovered, and nobody at the farm would have been surprised if we had. We didn't, because the price wasn't agreed on the condition that the crop turned out well, it was agreed because the relationship is worth more than any single season's yield.

Sítio Boa Vista is still on the menu as Cold Forge, in smaller quantities, and we expect a better crop next year, though we've learned not to promise that too confidently anymore.