Bahia

Bahia is Brazil's new frontier coffee state — a young producing region in the country's northeast that built a specialty reputation within a single generation. Its specialty core is the Chapada Diamantina, the diamond-mining highlands around the town of Piatã, where coffee climbs to some of the highest elevations in Brazil; the state also grows both Arabica and Robusta, and its farms rank among the most technologically advanced in the country, with irrigation and precision agriculture standard.

The Chapada Diamantina plantations sit at roughly 1,000 to 1,350 m — high for Brazil — on the slopes of a dramatic national-park landscape. The harvest window is roughly June to October, later than the southern states — approximate dates that vary with altitude and the year.

Bahia earned its credentials early and publicly: when the specialty-coffee movement was young, Bahia was among the first Brazilian regions showcased in the Cup of Excellence auctions, and its highland lots have remained fixture competitors — Piatã-grown Catuaí lots from around 1,350 m regularly score among the country's best.

Catuaí is the dominant variety, with Mundo Novo and others in the mix. In the cup, Chapada Diamantina coffee is described with a phrase unusual for Brazil: yellow fruit, honey and floral notes with an acidity the lowland Brazilian profile rarely shows — a documented tendency, and every lot is farm- and season-specific.

What makes Bahia distinctive is the contrast: a National-Park highland producing one of Brazil's most surprising cups, in a state where the coffee industry is younger than most of its farmers.