Brasil is the largest producer of coffee in the world since approximately 1840. Though, coffee is not a native Brazilian plant.
"Scandalous history of Brasilian coffee"
The story is dated back to 1727 when Francisco de Melo Palheta, a Portuguese diplomat, planted the first coffee bush in Pará, Brasil. The Portuguese had been looking for a way to enter the coffee market. They were unsuccessful in obtaining seeds from neighboring French Guiana due to its Governor’s refusal to export the seeds. However, when Palheta was on a diplomatic mission to French Guiana to resolve a border dispute, he had a secret relationship with the Governor’s wife. She sent him a bouquet spiked with coffee seeds, which he brought back to Brazil. Since then the coffee production spread from Pará to Rio de Janeiro, at first fueled by slave labor and then by paid workers.
"The largest world coffee producer"
Nowdays, Brasil exports 2,652,000 metric tons of coffee beans per annum. This translates to 44,200,000 bags of 60 kilogram of coffeee beans. Most of this coffee is robusta and across the country there are very few farms which produce arabica.
