Up, Up and Away - Brazil Miles Ahead of Rivals in Coffee Production

Brazil increased it's coffee production to an amazing 46 million bags in 2008, easily beating it's closest rivals, Vietnam (19 miliion bags) and Colombia (13 million bags)

That's a staggering 7500 tonnes of coffee, harvested, bagged and stored for each and every day of the year! Of course these processes are done at different times throughout the year, but whichever way you look at it, there is an awful lot of coffee in Brazil!

Over 75% of this production was Arabica coffee, with the state of Minas Gerais on its own producing more than 23 million bags - which is nearly two times the coffee production of Colombia. Minas Gerais (which roughly translates to 'General Mines') is situated in the south east of the country and is the third largest state in Brazil. The mineral mines founded in the eighteenth century are likely to have given it's name.

In this same century, coffee was first introduced to Brazil by a government official named Francisco de Mello Palheta. According to the intriguing story, back in 1727 he was invited to mediate a heated border dispute between French and Dutch Guiana, whose governments were actively growing coffee in Guiana. Both closely guarded their financial interests by strictly forbidding the exportation of coffee seeds and plants.

Palheta quickly accepted the invitation with hopes of somehow obtaining some seeds for planting coffee back in Brazil, and rather conveniently became romantically involved with the French Governors wife. Upon his departure, after successfully mediating a solution to the border issue, and doubtless pleasing the Governors wife, she presented him with a bouquet of flowers in which she had hidden several coffee seedlings.

The seedlings flourished and the Brazilian farmers quickly learned the art of growing coffee, putting the emphasis on quantity rather than quality. This has historically been the Brazilian way of coffee production.

Today, however, Brazil is becoming a significant player in the specialty coffee industry. Bourbon, Typica, Caturra, and Mundo Novo coffee varieties are grown in the states of Paraná, Espirito Santos, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Bahia.

As the worlds largest producer of coffee, the Brazilians do at least practice what they preach, as they are second only to the United States in being the worlds largest actual consumers of coffee.

Coffee is the most popular commodity in the world apart from oil, and Brazil produces the most by a huge margin!