Dear David:

My Northern Illinois University colleague and Brazilian economic historian Anne Hanley tells me:

Steve Topik is the person to ask, as he is the expert on coffee and a very personable and interesting guy, but this is what I know from studying Brazilian coffee and listening to Steve's papers over the years:  Brazil's coffee historically has not been very good.  Because of the politics of protecting export volume, Brazil never gave much importance to quality.  Because it didn't taste all that great, Brazilian coffee most commonly showed up in industrially packaged coffee like Folgers (I'm not sure if Folgers uses Brazilian coffee...I just mean the industrial vacuum packed types of brands).

I think that the rise of specialty coffees has caught Brazil's attention and that producers are now focusing on quality and on organic labeling to capitalize on that market.

The agency that governs Brazilian coffee exports is the IBC Instituto Brasileiro do Cafe, or Brazilian Coffee Institute.  A good web site I found on coffee grading and Brazilian coffee politics is:  http://www.coffeeresearch.org/coffee/brazil.htm

Anne Hanley
Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
History Department
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb, IL  60115
Email: [log in to unmask]

>>> David Fahey <[log in to unmask]> 11/03/08 2:45 PM >>>
At the recent coffee conference (Miami University, Ohio), Stephen
Topik pointed out the strange invisibility in coffee advertising since
the late 1800s of Brazil as the country of origin for a particular
coffee.  I know that in visiting coffee shops I see coffees labeled
for Ethiopia, Sumatra, Hawaii, etc.  One hundred percent Colombian is
an old coffee ad.  My questions: in fact, is Brazil practically
invisible in coffee labels of place of origin?  If so, why?

-- 
David M. Fahey
Professor of History
Miami University
Oxford, Ohio 45056
USA