Brazil is South America’s most influential and economically powerful country and one of the world’s largest economies. Coffee was introduced to Brazil in 1720 in the southern state of Paraná and has become the powerhouse of the coffee world accounting for more than a third of all coffee produced. Legend has it that at that time the Brazilian government had wanted a cut of world coffee production and sent Lt. Col. Francisco de Melo Palheta to French Guiana on the pretense of mediating on a border dispute. Aware that he would not be allowed to visit the fort-like coffee plantations, the lieutenant instead used his charms to woo the first lady of Guiana and encouraged her to give him the seedlings he also desired. Unable to resist his charms, she presented him with a bouquet spiked with coffee seeds at a farewell banquet held in his honour. Whether sex and deceit can really be attributed to Brazil’s introduction to coffee cannot be proved but there can be no doubt that now, in the 21st century, Brazil’s dominance in world production is unrivalled. Annual crops as high as 60 million bags are becoming common place and it is the world’s largest coffee producer, steering the market price and global value attributed to coffee given its huge impact on supply and demand.

Coffee plantations cover about 10,000 square miles of the country; of the approx. six billion trees, 74% are Arabica and 26% Robusta. The states of Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Paraná are the largest producers due to suitable landscapes, climate and rich soil though production has mostly moved North due to the harsh frosts experienced in the mid-1970s in Paraná which destroyed much of the coffee. Most plantations are harvested in the dry months of May to July and new crop tends to arrive into the UK between October and January.

We have worked with Marcelo Montanari of Fazenda Rainha da Paz since 2015, favouring his approach to carbon neutral coffee growing. His natural processed Rubi beans are the base of our house blend The Docks and are also available as a single origin.