In August, Sophie and Steve visited Fazenda Sete Cachoeiras in Brazil’s Sul de Minas, the single estate where our House Party story begins.
This piece explores what they found: Renato Brito’s ecological farming, the benefits of mechanisation, and our commitment to a single coffee variety. It’s a look at the invisible decisions made long before we ever turn on the roaster in Cardiff, and the human relationships built along the way.
Meet the Producer:
Renato Brito
Renato Brito isn’t just growing coffee; he is engineering an ecosystem. At his family’s estate in Sul de Minas, he approaches agronomy with a rare blend of technical insight and ecological empathy. He sees Sete Cachoeiras as a living loop where nothing is wasted, meticulously composting discarded coffee pulp to feed the next harvest.
He places active beehives along the forest edge, knowing that while Arabica can self-pollinate, the bees enrich the broader biodiversity of the land. It’s a fiercely clever, modern approach. By pairing mechanised harvesting with advanced optical sorters, Renato elevates the coffee's quality while sparing his team from punishing physical labour.
For Renato, caring for the environment, advancing agricultural science, and looking out for his people aren't separate initiatives. They are the exact same work.
A Day at Sete Cachoeiras
Somewhere among the coffee trees, Renato Brito lost his glasses. We were walking through Fazenda Sete Cachoeiras, his family farm in Sul de Minas, Brazil. The rows bent with the land before disappearing into the green. If I’m honest, we had been looking for the best spot among them to photograph our coffee bags. We’d found it, taken some snaps (see image above) and were beginning to move on when Renato realised his sunglasses were missing.
We all began searching the ground. Feeling increasingly guilty for dragging him around in search of the “right light”, I was relieved to spot them between the trees after a few tense minutes. Renato spoke into Google Translate, handed me his phone.
“Without these, we’d never find our way home.”
We laughed. Renato put them back on, and we climbed into the truck and headed for lunch. Only later did we learn they were his prescription glasses. A couple of miles deep into the farm’s winding rows, Sophie or I might otherwise have had to take the wheel.
Renato and his farm manager, João Paulo spoke some English; Sophie and I spoke very little Portuguese. I was the "photographer" and Sophie was "the boss" - a dynamic I happily exploited to dodge any serious questions. When we needed it, Google Translate filled the gaps. Most of the time, what was in front of us was enough: a handful of soil, a ripe cherry pulled from a branch, a gesture towards the forest.
There is something clarifying about being in the place where a familiar thing begins.
At Hard Lines, we roast and drink House Party every day. It's easy to experience it as a finished thing. A brown bag with a red smiley cup. A recipe to follow. A cup that tastes the way we expect it to taste. At Sete Cachoeiras, that finished thing opens back out into acres of land, people, weather and decisions made many months before the coffee reaches us.
Our Relationship with Sete Cachoeiras
Our relationship with Sete Cachoeiras began in 2022, when Sam became the first member of the Hard Lines team to visit. Ruth followed in 2024, and Sophie and I made the journey together in 2026.
Each visit has built on the one before it, deepening our understanding of how Renato and his team work: how they care for the soil, how they use technology and how carefully they think about consistency. These trips aren't about taking photos; they are how we turn a simple transaction into an ongoing conversation.
Sete Cachoeiras is a large, highly mechanised farm, but it does not feel cut off from the landscape around it. Rivers cross the land, and areas of native forest are deliberately kept out of production. The farm is also Rainforest Alliance certified.
Renato described the farm as a loop. Material left behind by one harvest helps feed the next. Coffee pulp and other organic matter are composted on-site and returned to the soil rather than leaving the farm as waste.
Elsewhere, active beehives sit close to the forest. Arabica coffee can pollinate itself, but visits from bees can improve fruit formation and yield. For Renato, their value extends beyond the crop to the wider biodiversity of the farm.
What Mechanisation Changes
Sete Cachoeiras uses mechanised harvesting, optical colour sorting and modern drying silos. (It’s one of the most highly advanced farms in Brazil.) These tools give Renato and his team greater control over quality and help keep it consistent from one harvest to the next.
Mechanisation also changes the work itself. João Paulo spoke about it in human terms: machines remove some of the heaviest physical labour from the harvest, making the work safer and less punishing for the people doing it.
The romance of hand-picked coffee is easy to maintain from the other side of the world. It becomes more complicated when you consider the weight of that labour, repeated hour after hour, harvest after harvest.
Why House Party Uses a Single Variety
That control matters because House Party is not a coffee we want to reinvent with every harvest. Its role is to remain recognisable: chocolatey, naturally sweet and easy to return to.
Many coffees created for that purpose combine different farms, regions or varieties, with the blend adjusted each year to reach a particular flavour. House Party comes entirely from Sete Cachoeiras and is made using one variety: Acaiá.
Using one variety does not make every harvest identical. Weather, soil, ripeness and processing still leave their mark. What it gives us is a clear line back to the farm.
Instead of rebuilding the profile from a different combination of coffees each year, we return to the same people, place and variety, developing a shared understanding of what we are looking for.
The Work Behind a Familiar Cup
Before visiting Sete Cachoeiras, I tended to think about consistency from our end of the process: roast profiles, recipes and cups lined up for quality control. On the farm, I saw how much of that work happens before the coffee reaches us.
That work begins months, even years earlier - in how the soil is cared for, when the coffee is harvested and how it is sorted and dried. None of it is dramatic on its own. The result comes from thousands of small decisions, made carefully across an entire harvest.
That does not mean forcing every crop to taste identical. Coffee is an agricultural product: weather changes, harvests shift and the cup moves with them. Consistency means noticing those changes and responding to them without losing the character people return for.
That responsibility is shared between Renato and his team in Brazil and our team in Cardiff. By the time House Party reaches someone’s kitchen, none of those decisions are visible. They are there in the cup all the same.
It remains familiar not because the coffee stands still, but because people keep paying attention as it changes.
Sophie Smith and Steve Pierce visited Fazenda Sete Cachoeiras in August 2026, during a trip to Brazil with Volcafe UK — a massive thank you to the entire team for the incredible Brazilian hospitality and for welcoming us so warmly!
