About
I’m Washington, the founder of Santu. I grew up on my grandparents’ coffee farm in Brazil, then trained and worked in coffee roasting and retail in New York, before moving back to Espirito Santo with my wife to learn more about producing specialty coffee.
Living and working on the amazing Tozi farm, we saw how complex the industry is, crowded with middlemen who squeeze the farmer’s margins, drive up the final buyer’s price, and make it impossible to know where the coffee is really coming from. We decided to create a new, true direct trade process with total transparency.
So now we live in Edinburgh, where we buy only exceptional coffee from the farmers we know personally and trust implicitly. Those farmers put their coffee onto the ship, we take it off and roast it here before delivering directly to our clients big and small.
OUr Partners
All our partners are in Espirito Santo, Brazil. It’s a tiny and incredibly beautiful mountainous state, far less well-known than the big producing regions like Minas Gerais. What makes it special is the wide variance in altitude, terrain and climate, allowing farmers there to produce an extraordinary range of award-winning specialty coffees.
Adelfo Casagrande (Coffee 01)
Adelfo was our landlord whilst we lived in Brazil. He grows his coffee in the shade of his avocado trees, which may be why he’s scored 85+ SCA points with every harvest since he started producing specialty coffee. He lives next to the Forno Grande National Park with his wonderful wife Marlucia and their beautiful sons Lucas and Gabriel.
Eduardo Vettorazzi Tozi (Coffee 02)
Eduardo’s a Cup of Excellence finalist and Best of Brazil winner. His family has been farming this land since 1880, and his farm is special to us because it’s where we worked when we moved back to Brazil - it’s in the deep Caxixe Valley, partly covered by protected Atlantic Forest. Eduardo’s mum, Cecilia, makes the best lunch in the world, the high point of a day working at the farm.
Jose & Jacqueline Schiavo (Coffee 3)
It’s especially meaningful for us to work with the Schiavo family, as it’s exciting to have a young woman taking over her family farm in a traditionally male industry. Jacqueline has already built a great network and tons of respect in the local farming community, and is going to school to learn more about the coffee process. Her father Jose is a fantastic producer with a truly remarkable coffee we snapped up as soon as we tried it.
Anacleto & Fabiano Tozi (Coffee 4)
Just down the valley from Eduardo, his brother and uncle farm this land that’s been shared by the Tozi and Fin families for four generations. We had the great pleasure to work with these families for over a year when we lived in Brazil, and we learned so much from their meticulous processes. Fabiano’s cute kids and endless parade of kittens keep everyone on the farm entertained, and Anacleto’s amazing eggs were part of almost every meal we ate in Brazil.
