Every bag of coffee has an origin.
We print it on the label. We talk about farms, regions, processes and varieties. We taste the coffee and pick out notes of chocolate, fruit, nuts or caramel. Then we roast it here in Leicestershire, pack it, brew it and send it out into the world.
But an origin is much more than a place on a map.
Behind every coffee are people. Families. Communities. Landscapes. Generations of knowledge. And thousands of decisions made long before the green coffee ever reaches our roastery.
Earlier this year, Jack from St Martins travelled to Brazil to explore the origins of Brazilian coffee first-hand, visiting farms and meeting some of the remarkable people behind the coffees we drink every day.
What he found was an industry of extraordinary scale and sophistication, but also one that remains deeply human.
Exploring the origins of Brazilian coffee
Brazil is impossible to ignore when talking about coffee.
As the world's largest coffee-producing country, the story of Brazilian coffee is inseparable from the landscapes, communities and generations of producers who grow it.
But statistics only tell part of that story.
Jack's journey took him to Tres Pontas in Minas Gerais, one of Brazil's most important coffee-growing regions, where coffee isn't simply an agricultural product. It is part of the landscape, the economy and everyday life.
Even walking through town on his first morning, coffee seemed to be everywhere.
Soon, though, he would see where it actually begins.
Coffee farming in Brazil: tradition meets innovation
The first farm visit was Fazenda Aracaçu.
Driving through seemingly endless rows of coffee trees offered the first real indication of the scale of coffee production in Brazil. It was here that Jack tasted a ripe coffee cherry straight from the tree — about as close to the beginning of the coffee journey as you can get.
The welcome waiting at the farm couldn't have been warmer.
Coffee and cake were served in a purpose-built coffee house, where the group met farm owner Ucha and were treated to a V60 prepared by 2024 World Cup Tasters Champion Dionathan Almeida.
But beyond the coffee itself, what stood out was the philosophy behind its production.
Respect for the soil. Respect for biodiversity. Respect for the people working the land.
Walking through the farm, that philosophy became tangible. Fallen leaves were allowed to remain between rows, returning nutrients to the soil. Some coffees were fermented beneath banana and mango trees. Natural fertilisers were used rather than simply reaching for chemical alternatives.
At the same time, this respect for traditional coffee farming existed alongside remarkably advanced technology.
Coffee cherries were processed using sophisticated machinery. Drying patios were tended both by people carrying traditional hand rakes and by remote-controlled equipment.
It wasn't a case of technology replacing craftsmanship.
It was technology being used to support it.
One coffee in particular left an impression: Banga, a naturally fermented lot processed beneath fruit trees, where naturally occurring yeasts and bacteria contribute to its final character.
Sweet, complex and incredibly expressive, it was a reminder of just how much happens at origin before Brazilian coffee ever reaches a roastery like ours.
Inside one of Brazil's coffee farms
The following day brought a completely different perspective on coffee farming in Brazil.
After around two hours on the road, the group arrived at Fazenda Palmital and met its owner, Carlos.
Carlos was born on the farm — remarkably, in the same bed he still sleeps in today. Coffee farming has surrounded him for his entire life.
And his influence extends far beyond his own land.
Carlos is president of Cooxupé, a coffee farming cooperative with around 21,000 members, and previously served as mayor of the region. His son, Augusto, works alongside him as his right-hand man in running the farm.
After coffee, everyone climbed into pickup trucks and headed deeper into the estate.
Only then did the scale really become apparent.
Palmital is one of four farms owned by Carlos. Together they cover around 1,000 hectares, with approximately 400 hectares planted with coffee.
Numbers like that are difficult to visualise.
Standing amongst it is different.
Coffee stretched across mountainsides and disappeared into the landscape.
Much of that landscape is too steep for machinery, meaning harvesting still has to be completed by hand. Jack was given the opportunity to try harvesting coffee himself.
It didn't take long to appreciate just how demanding the work is.
We interact with coffee every day at St Martins. We roast it, cup it, brew it, talk about it and sell it. But physically harvesting coffee on a mountainside in Brazil gives you a very different relationship with what is inside the bag.
Forty-six years
For all the extraordinary scale of Palmital, however, the most memorable part of the visit wasn't its size.
It was its people.
While walking the farm, the group met members of Carlos's team. One gentleman had worked alongside him for 46 years.
Carlos became emotional as he spoke about their relationship and the loyalty they had shown one another across nearly half a century.
It revealed something easy to overlook when we talk about Brazilian coffee purely in terms of hectares, yields, processing methods and flavour.
A coffee farm is also a community.
Before Jack and the group left, they presented Carlos with a card signed by everyone on the trip. He began to tear up.
Despite everything he has achieved and the scale of the operation he oversees, he remained fascinated by where everyone had travelled from, what their businesses were called and, most importantly, where his coffee eventually ends up.
For Carlos, the journey of the coffee matters.
For us, meeting the person at the other end of that journey matters too.
Twenty hectares. Three generations.
Later that same day came perhaps the clearest demonstration of just how diverse Brazilian coffee production can be.
After spending the morning exploring an operation spanning around 1,000 hectares, Jack travelled to Sitio Divisa, the farm of Ronaldo Madiera.
Ronaldo's farm is around 20 hectares.
There is no enormous workforce.
Instead, the farm is worked by three generations of the same family: Ronaldo, his father and his son.
Ronaldo works in partnership with SMC and DRWakefield through Project Vinte, a programme bringing together 20 smaller coffee producers.
For individual small farms, accessing international commercial markets can be difficult. By working together and pooling coffees, producers can create opportunities and reach markets that may otherwise be inaccessible to them.
It was the opposite end of the spectrum from the morning's visit.
Different scale.
Different economics.
Different challenges.
But exactly the same passion for coffee.
When two ends of the coffee chain meet
As the sun began to fall over Ronaldo's farm, conversation turned to where his coffee eventually goes.
Ronaldo spoke about how fascinating it was to meet people from another part of the world who work with the coffee that farmers like him produce.
And Jack realised that the feeling was completely mutual.
At St Martins, we spend an enormous amount of time with coffee after it has left origin.
We receive it as green coffee. We sample roast it. Cup it. Develop roast profiles. Brew it. Package it. Talk about it with customers. Serve it in cafés.
We become incredibly familiar with the coffee.
But we don't always get to meet the people who made it possible.
For Ronaldo, growing coffee provides the livelihood that supports three generations of his family.
For us, that same coffee might eventually arrive thousands of miles away in Leicester, where another group of people continue its journey.
Two completely different worlds connected by the same bean.
Brazilian coffee is more than a commodity
Perhaps that is the biggest lesson from travelling to coffee origin.
Coffee can easily become a commodity.
A product.
A SKU.
Something measured in kilos, roast profiles, extraction percentages and tasting scores.
All of those things matter. But they are only the final few chapters of a much longer story.
Before any of that comes soil.
Weather.
Harvesting.
Processing.
Experimentation.
Risk.
Knowledge passed between generations.
People getting up in the morning and going to work.
Families building their lives around a crop.
The Brazilian coffee farms Jack visited couldn't have been more different. One stretched across mountains and formed part of an enormous agricultural operation. Another consisted of just 20 hectares worked by a father, son and grandfather.
Yet everywhere he went, the same things kept appearing.
Pride.
Hospitality.
Craft.
Family.
And an extraordinary passion for coffee.
Bringing coffee origin home
Trips like this matter to St Martins because they change the way we understand the coffee passing through our hands.
When green coffee arrives at the roastery, its journey isn't beginning. We're joining it somewhere in the middle.
Our job is to respect everything that happened before it reached us, roast it in a way that allows the work at origin to shine, and then introduce that coffee — and hopefully some of the story behind it — to the person who eventually drinks it.
Because somewhere behind that morning flat white, V60 or bag of Brazilian coffee beans is a landscape thousands of miles away.
There might be a coffee farm stretching across a mountainside in Minas Gerais.
There might be a remote-controlled machine moving across a drying patio.
There might be somebody who has worked alongside the same farmer for 46 years.
There might be three generations of one family tending 20 hectares together.
And there are people like Carlos, Ronaldo and Ucha who have devoted enormous parts of their lives to producing something that eventually finds its way to us here in Leicester.
That's the real origin of our coffee.
Not simply a country printed on a bag.
People, places and stories — connected by coffee.