Nossa Familia Brings Brazil to Portland’s Pearl
Positioned squarely in Portland’s Pearl District, 10-year-old Nossa Familia Coffee is quietly making some of the best coffee in the Pacific Northwest.
The story starts in the way a lot of artisan producers wish they could: With family history. Back in 2004, Augusto Carneiro was unsatisfied with his engineering gig and wanted to connect his family’s history growing coffee beans in Brazil to a new path. Since 1890, when his great-grandfather planted coffee crop along with his brothers, the family has been bean-deep in the industry. Without the equipment or space to start roasting beans, Carneiro took the $800 he had saved and got his family in Brazil to ship a bunch of beans to his Portland hometown.
He started off roasting them on consignment with a local partner, telling the family story to customers as they came in. “The idea was to be a connector and start a scalable business,” he explains.
Ten years later, they’re fully vertically integrated, with the family growing 75 percent of the beans they use in Brazil, Carneiro’s cousin operating the export business, a large space for roasting in the Pearl and a small cafe onsite. Their wholesale business has grown as well, with their latest account a takeover of the Grand Central Bakery locations in Portland—a client they took right out from under Caffe Vita.
“It’s a little backward, because most people start with a little cafe, and eventually move to something bigger and then to a direct trade relationship,” Carneiro says. The cafe is small, with a partial wall separating it from stacks of burlap-wrapped coffee beans. During roasting hours, customers can smell, hear and even see the beans roasting as they order their drinks.
In the next year, Nossa Familia hopes to open another larger cafe, one with more space for community. “Hospitality is a central part of Brazilian culture, and we want to be able to extend that to our customers,” Carnerio says.
Though most of their sales have been wholesale, the idea of educating and connecting with consumers is central to their business. “The idea is to be as open as possible,” he says. “And to showcase our beans in a form where we control the flavor profile and process from start to finish.”
A big factor in creating the flavors they’re eager to share is Rob Hoos, the so-called “Director of Coffee” who Carneiro “imported” from Ohio after a Skype interview. “Actually, I offered him the job and he turned it down,” he says. “But I knew he was the one, so I followed up and did a better job of sharing our story, our purpose and ambition to continue to learn, grow, travel and perfect the craft of roasting. That did the trick.”
Hoos has achieved the top certificate from the Roaster’s Guild of America, and works as a subject matter expert, content developer and instructor for the SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America). In March, he published a book on coffee roasting called “Modulating the Flavor Profile of Coffee—One Roaster’s Manifesto.”
Nossa Familia’s most popular roast is the Full Cycle, which is also one of Carneiro’s favorites. The only multi-country blend, the coffee is a mix of beans from the family farm in Brazil and some from Nicaragua or Guatemala, depending on the season. The Nicaraguan beans come from the farm of a friend from his engineering days, with Nossa Familia the first to bring the beans to the United States.
The Guatemalan beans come from a relationship established during Hoos’ first trip to the origin, where he was so inspired he helped pre-finance the harvest to help the co-op farmers. In working with these co-ops and developing personal relationships before buying beans, Nossa Familia has been able to help farms grow and are excited to ship a growing amount of the limited supply coffee.
Full Cycle also happens to be a house favorite, a blend created to showcase citrusy, fruity Central American and chocolatey, caramely Brazilian beans. The name signifies the full cycle involved in the Nossa Familia model, with every aspect from farming to serving connected and kept close. It also nods to the brand’s love of cycling, and a portion of every sale goes to the Bicycle Transportation Alliance and the Community Cycling Center.
In the beginning of the Nossa Familia story, it was all Brazilian with beans coming from Carneiro’s family farm. “It’s exciting getting coffee from different origins because you get a variation in flavor profiles,” he says. “Plus, it’s a great opportunity to travel and expand horizons.”
In terms of sales, 90 percent are made in Portland, with an account in Brooklyn, a few in LA, and one in Hood River. They haven’t decided what’s next. Eventually, they want to bring farmers and baristas from the foreign countries for a kind of exchange. “We want to grow,” Carneiro says. “But we’re not desperate for growth.”
