Brazil Santos – green coffee beans for home roasting

Brazil Santos – raw coffee with a mild and nutty character

Brazil Santos is an exciting raw coffee for those who want to roast their own coffee and prefer a mild, rounded, and nutty flavor profile.

These are green, unroasted coffee beans that must be roasted before they can be ground and used for regular coffee brewing.

The supplier’s current flavor profile notes milk chocolate, fig, and hazelnut, which aligns well with our own experience of the coffee. At Brændeholm Risteri, we roast Brazil Santos medium ourselves, where we find it to be particularly smooth, rounded, mild, and nutty.

When you buy it raw, you have the opportunity to decide for yourself how you want to work with these characteristics through the roasting process.

If you would like to compare it with other origins, you can find our entire selection of raw and green coffee beans for home roasting.

Raw coffee profile

• Origin: Brazil
• Coffee: Brazil Santos / Brazil Fine Cup
• Product: Raw / green coffee beans
• Growing altitude: Approx. 600–1,200 m.a.s.l.
• Bean sorting: Screen 17/18
• Processing: Natural
• Harvest period: May–September
• Flavor notes: Milk chocolate, fig, and hazelnut
• Character: Mild, rounded, smooth, and nutty
• Quantities: 1 kg, 2 kg, 5 kg, and 10 kg
• Usage: Home roasting / self-roasting coffee
• Roast degree: Determined by you

Our experience roasting Brazil Santos

One of the advantages of buying raw coffee beans from a coffee roastery is that we work with the same coffee ourselves.

We roast Brazil Santos as a medium-roasted coffee.

Here we especially notice:

• A mild character
• A rounded and smooth cup
• Distinct nutty notes
• Pleasant sweetness
• Limited sharp acidity
• A classic and accessible coffee profile

This aligns well with the supplier’s description of Brazil Fine Cup as balanced and smooth with notes of chocolate, nuts, and mild acidity.

If you would like to taste the profile we have chosen for this coffee, you can see Brazil Santos – medium roast.

What can you adjust during roasting?

When you buy Brazil Santos raw, our medium roast is not the definitive answer.

It is our interpretation of the coffee.

You can experiment yourself with how far you want to develop the roast and explore how the balance between the coffee’s inherent character and the roast characteristics changes.

Generally speaking, different roast degrees will often steer the coffee in different directions:

Lighter roast

A lighter profile typically gives more room for the raw coffee's own character and less flavor from the roasting process itself.

For this coffee, it can be interesting if you want to explore how many of the more delicate flavor nuances you can preserve.

Medium roast

This is the direction we have chosen ourselves.

Here we find the coffee to be mild, rounded, and nutty, where sweetness, body, and the coffee’s own character are in good balance.

Darker roast

A darker profile will generally provide more power and clearer roast characteristics.

How far you want to go depends on both your coffee roaster, your brewing method, and your personal taste.

If you would like to read more about the general differences, you can see our guide to light, medium, and dark roast profiles.

Flavor notes: milk chocolate, fig, and hazelnut

The current flavor notes from the supplier are:

Milk chocolate · fig · hazelnut.

It is important to understand flavor notes on raw coffee correctly.

They do not mean that the green beans have been infused with chocolate, fig, or nuts. They describe aromatic associations and the flavor potential that can be experienced in the finished, roasted, and brewed coffee.

The final result is influenced by factors such as:

• your roast profile
• how far the roasting is developed
• the specific coffee roaster
• grind size
• water
• dosage
• brewing method

Therefore, two home roasters can start with the same Brazil Santos and end up with coffee that tastes noticeably different.

Why do we emphasize the nutty character?

Hazelnut is a specific flavor note in the current supplier datasheet.

At the same time, we find the coffee to be clearly nutty after roasting.

This makes the nutty quality a particularly relevant part of the product’s identity, as it is supported by both the supplier’s profile and our practical experience with the coffee.

Together with milk chocolate, it provides a more classic and smooth coffee expression than, for example, highly floral or citrusy raw coffees.

Fig contributes a sweeter fruit reference, but we would not describe Brazil Santos as an inherently "fruity coffee." For us, roundedness, mildness, and nuttiness remain the strongest traits.

Natural-processed Brazil Santos

According to the current data sheet, this Brazil Santos is natural-processed.

In the natural process, the coffee cherry is dried with the fruit surrounding the coffee bean, before the dried fruit is later removed.

Natural processing is one of the factors that can influence the coffee's character, but the processing method alone cannot predict how the final coffee will taste. Origin, raw coffee, roasting, and brewing also play a role.

If you want to delve deeper into the difference between natural, washed, and other processing methods, you can read our guide to coffee processing.

What does Screen 17/18 mean?

The supplier’s data sheet lists this raw coffee as Screen 17/18.

The screen designation is used for sizing green coffee beans.

It therefore tells you something about the beans' physical size – not directly how good the coffee tastes.

It is worth including as product data, but we do not use Screen 17/18 as an artificial quality claim.

Grown at 600–1,200 meters altitude

The data sheet specifies a growing altitude of 600–1,200 meters above sea level.

It is a relatively broad interval, and therefore we would not write a more precise altitude than this.

We also do not use a specific Brazilian region or farm on the product page because the current data sheet does not document such a specific origin.

It is important to me that we continue the line we have established for previous products: fewer specific details are better than details we cannot document for the current batch.

Harvest period

The supplier’s product sheet indicates the harvest to be May–September.

We include this as product information, but it does not need to take up much space in the sales text. For the customer, the flavor profile, processing, and the possibilities of home roasting are more important.

Choose between 1 kg, 2 kg, 5 kg, and 10 kg

Brazil Santos raw coffee beans are available in:

• 1 kg
• 2 kg
• 5 kg
• 10 kg

1 kg

A good choice if you want to try Brazil Santos for the first time or if you want to make several smaller test batches.

This gives you the opportunity to get to know the coffee without buying a very large quantity.

2 kg

With 2 kg, you have a better opportunity to repeat your roasts and adjust individual parameters along the way.

This is a good size if you already have some experience with home roasting or want to work more systematically with the coffee.

5 kg

5 kg is well-suited for you if you roast regularly, already know the type of coffee you want, or want to experiment with several different profiles.

At the same time, you get more raw coffee from the same product to compare your roasts.

10 kg

10 kg is the largest variant.

It is relevant for you if you roast a lot, want a larger stock of the same raw coffee, or want to work systematically with several batches and roast profiles over a longer period.

How to get to know Brazil Santos

If you have not worked with this coffee before, I recommend starting with smaller test batches.

Note, for example:

• batch size
• your most important roast observations
• how the coffee developed
• how it tasted after roasting

Then try changing a few things at a time.

If you change many parameters at once, it becomes difficult to know what actually made the difference.

An interesting exercise with Brazil Santos is trying to find the balance where you personally feel that the roundedness, nutty character, and sweetness are at their best.

It does not necessarily have to be the same profile that we use at Brændeholm Risteri.

A good raw coffee for a classic flavor direction

If you already know that you prefer coffee with a very floral, berry-forward, or citrus-dominated character, there are other raw coffees in our range that might be more suitable.

Brazil Santos moves in a more classic direction.

It is particularly interesting for those who seek:

• mild coffee
• roundedness
• nutty notes
• chocolate-like sweetness
• limited sharp acidity
• a raw coffee that can be developed to your own taste

That is precisely why we have chosen to work with it as a medium-roasted coffee.

Storage of raw Brazil Santos

Green coffee beans should be stored dry, cool, and protected from direct sunlight, strong odors, and large fluctuations in temperature and humidity.

This is especially relevant if you buy 5 or 10 kg and therefore expect to have the beans for a longer period of time.

Raw coffee should not be treated the same way as roasted coffee beans. After roasting, both storage requirements and the coffee’s development change.

From raw bean to our medium-roasted Brazil Santos

At Brændeholm Risteri, we work with Brazil Santos from raw coffee bean to finished roasted coffee.

Our own medium roast is chosen to highlight the profile we like best in the coffee:

mild · rounded · smooth · nutty

But when you buy the coffee raw, you are the one who decides the direction.

You can use our medium-roasted Brazil Santos as a reference or start entirely from your own ideas.

That is precisely the freedom of home roasting.

If you want to work with several different origins, you can see our entire selection of raw coffee beans for home roasting.