By www.BuyOrganicCoffee.org
Brazil Drinks More Coffee
Brazil drinks more coffee these days. In fact today Brazil drinks more coffee than almost anyone except the United States, the world’s biggest coffee consumer. Considering that Brazil is the world’s leading coffee producer one would think that Brazilians would be avid coffee drinkers as well. Brazil exported 29,741,510 bags of green coffee in 2010. At 60 kilograms a bag this amounts to 1,784,490,600 kilograms. Brazil produces twice as much wholesale coffee as the second ranking producer, Vietnam. However, Brazil has not been a traditionally big consumer of its own product. Two things have changed this. One is the rise of the middle class in an increasingly prosperous Brazil. The other is that Brazil has cleaned up its act in regards to domestic coffee sales.
Cleaning Up Domestic Coffee in Brazil
Brazil has typically exported its best coffee. What was left over, after coffee growers exported the good stuff, was sold on the domestic market. Unfortunately, domestic coffee often had “fillers” such as barley, corn, soybeans, sugar and coffee bean skins mixed in. Nearly a third of the coffee sold in Brazil had these sorts of “fillers.” This was more profitable for Brazilian roasters but short sighted. When Brazil eradicated this practice coffee in Brazil got better. Now Brazil drinks more coffee because the coffee is purer. Even if the coffee in the cup is not healthy organic coffee, it is still better than the coffee/corn/barley/soybean mix that Brazilians used to drink.
The Rise of the Middle Class in Brazil
In the last decade or so the middle class has grown throughout Latin America. From newly industrialized cities in North and Central Mexico down to the emerging powerhouse that is Brazil there is an expanding group of people between the rich and the poor. The middle class of Brazil has money, likes to go to the mall, and is partial to a good cup of coffee at the coffee shop. A measure of this is that the number of coffee shops in Sao Paulo has doubled in the last dozen years or so. Brazil drinks more coffee, good coffee, because it has more disposable income and because the coffee is better. A measure of how things work better in Brazil these days is seen in our article about how Brazil coffee storage will raise coffee farmer income. An infrastructure that works is likely help Brazil enlarge its middle class and a prosperous middle class in Brazil drinks more coffee.
Brazil is Keeping More of Its Good Coffee at Home
As the market for high quality coffee increases in Brazil, growers are selling more of their high quality coffee locally. Brazil drinks more coffee because when you have had a cup of good organic whole bean coffee or even regular coffee of high quality, it is hard to go back to a regular cup of coffee. Now, as Brazil drinks more coffee, more organic coffee, more coffee house coffee, and more coffee at home, it is catching up with the US as a coffee consumer.
