Drink aromatic, with strong flavor, nervous system stimulant, coffee has become a habit spread throughout the world and its production and marketing have significant weight in the international economy, constituting a major export products of some forty of the least developed countries.
Coffee is the fruit of the coffee, the family of larmenoire bush, genus Coffea, of which there are over sixty species and many varieties, can reach up to ten meters high. The main species of economic importance are Coffea arabica and Coffea robusta or canephora, the first of higher prices in international trade by its qualities of aroma and flavor.
Besides the universal consumption of tea, coffee has other applications, since, because it contains caffeine and other alkaloids in their chemical composition, serves on the nervous and circulatory system, stimulating the heart and brain activity, in addition to serving as diuretic. It is used against headache, drunkenness, asthma, cough and as antidote of opium and morphine. In some regions of Brazil, the leaves of coffee, used in the form of baths, the fight colds and rheumatism. Meanwhile has no nutritional value and, if consumed in excess, can cause gastritis, nervousness and changes in heart rhythm. The residue of infusion serves as fertilizer.
The word seems to derive from Arabic coffee qahwah, although etymologist to relate Kaffe, province of Ethiopia where the plant is native. From there he went to Saudi and it is accepted that the Arabs have already begun to take coffee in the fifteenth century. The culture has developed and Yemen remained as the main global supplier until the seventeenth century.
One of the legends surrounding the discovery of the stimulating effect of coffee is the pastor KALDI. Seeing the excitement of his flock of goats, after the intake of some fruits of coffee, KALDI That proved the red, demonstrating his power exciting. That would have occurred in the year 850. Other sources, however, include a monk was the first Arab to prepare an infusion of coffee with seeds, in order to get rid of sleep that prevented from conducting their vigil.
In Mecca, the Muslim holy city at the beginning of the sixteenth century the coffee was too consumed, but hastened to be condemned by the more orthodox sects of Islam and, on the pretext of countering the Koran, its use was prohibited. In 1526 the ban was abolished and both the agriculture and trade of coffee is developed across the Arab peninsula, until you get to Turkey and then to Europe, over the centuries XVI and XVII.
Who first disclosed the properties of coffee in Europe was Rauwolfia Leonard, who traveled by East Germany in 1592, followed by the botanist he Prospero Italian Alpine area. It is recognized that in Venice at the end of the sixteenth century, coffee is consumed. The plan seems to have been taken to the American continent, in 1607, by Captain John Smith, founder of Virginia. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, ships from the East India Company brought large loads of coffee in the East.
It was in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) who opened the first establishment to serve coffee to the public in 1550. In Europe the first coffee houses appeared in Venice in 1591; London in 1652 and Marseilles in 1671. From 1670, similar establishments to be broadcast by the major U.S. cities.
With the popularization of the use of its coffee cultivation spread all around the world. It is said that their arrival in the New World is due to the French captain Gabriel-Mathieu of Clieu, responsible for the introduction of the first plant, in Martinique. Between 1720 and 1723, De Clieu, who served in the lining of Martinique, visited France, where he learned that the Dutch had successfully implanted the coffee to the East Indies, whose climate is similar to that of Martinique. Then decided to start growing in that colony, but the few coffee then existing in Paris were kept very carefully, in greenhouses, the gardeners of Louis XV. Only the very cost he has some seedlings and during the trip back to Martinique has had for over a month, to divide its quota of water in the vessel with coffee, finally planted on the island and treated with care until the production of first berries. They led most of the current plantations in the region.
Geographical distribution. The coffee thrives in tropical climates and land in mid altitudes. The soil should be moist, rich in organic matter and porous to prevent the accumulation of water, which rots the roots of the plant.
Until the first half of the twentieth century, was the widespread belief among farmers that the Brazilian coffee could be grown efficiently in virgin lands, after the defeat of the woods, clearing the land and opening holes to receive directly from the seed or seedlings, without the need for fertilizer due to soil fertility. This belief is overcome and coffee is now produced within the most modern techniques of planting, the soil and fix the irrigation and drainage.
The natural habitat of the species of greatest economic importance is the tropical zone of Africa, a range that extends from Guinea to Ethiopia and in the south to Angola. In Ethiopia remaining native forests of coffee and in some regions of Asia (Myanmar, Indonesia) certain plant species spontaneously.
There are commercial crops in about seventy regions of the equator to the tropics, track passed, to the south, only in Brazil and Mozambique and the north in Taiwan. The main species are distributed geographically as follows:
Coffea arabica - predominates in the West, where 27 countries to grow alone and 31 associate it to other species. In the African continent flourishes in the plateaus of Ethiopia, southeastern Sudan, shrimp, Angola, eastern Zaire, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya and Tanzania. In Asia almost been extinguished when the coffee were attacked by rust, a disease that gives the leaves of the bush, but remains in certain regions of the Philippines and Indonesia. In Brazil the most cultivated varieties are: typica, new world, ratty, Kemnay and bourbon.
Coffea robusta or canephora - is concentrated in Asia and Africa, mainly in Benin, Togo, Gabon, Congo, Angola, Madagascar, Uganda, Ivory Coast, shrimp, Liberia, Tanzania, Guinea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Sri Lanka, New Caledonia, Comoros Islands, and Trinidad and Martinique. This variety is also grown in the Antilles, Ecuador and Brazil.
Coffea liberica - of low economic importance in global framework, is the only species existing in Guyana. Its cultivation extends to some 17 countries and is the largest producer Suriname, Malaysia, Liberia, Philippines, Equatorial Guinea and Sao Tomé
Conditions for cultivation - as tropical plant, the coffee is not suited to cold weather and drought. The regions are the most favorable showing annual average temperatures between 18 and 20 C and where the absolute minimum rarely fall below zero. The frosts are often harmful. Plant humid climate as accepting indexes around 1,500 mm of rainfall annually and droughts can not be very long, since the drought affect the more crops that excessive moisture. When planted in the soil conditions appropriate, the coffee begins to produce the third year in appreciable quantity. His full period of income opened between the seventh and eighth year and its life is between 15 and 20 years. In some regions of Brazil to produce cafezais above that age, for another twenty years or so.
The coffee is grown now with new methods, the seedlings grown in nurseries and are then transplanted into rows, which will facilitate the collection, in addition to the opening of mass graves that helps to control erosion. The quality of land, the selection of fertilizers, irrigation artificial, as well as protection against frost and rust, are factors of growing importance in modern coffee.
The harvest of coffee is done in three ways: (1) derriça, when they are torn by hand and thrown to the ground, and then with the aid of the rake (a farm tool with teeth of wood or iron) and be joined Sieves, in order to expunge the leaves, cubes of land and other impurities, (2) harvest in the cloth, when the catcher of coffee off the fruits of branch and trim with a cloth, normally attached to the waist, (3) the finger, when the harvest ripe fruit (cherry), keeping them in baskets, bags or sieves. It is a process of harvesting slower, but better established.
The grains after harvested must be cleaned and that the work can be dry, with the use of special machines, or by hydraulic process in lavadouros. The process of drying of grains vary, but in Brazil, Ivory Coast and Angola is common to place the beans in the sun on terraces previously cleaned, where, for ten or 12 days, are upside down, spread and finally stacked. From the terrace cafe is taken to the bins (a kind of deposit), where "rest" for a period that forty days aproximado and then be received, sorted and bagged. Currently, most large manufacturers, among which stand out in the Brazilian states of Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais and Parana, the various stages of improvement, such as drying, selection, despolpamento and roasting are performed mechanically.
world trade coffee moves billions of dollars and over twenty million people depend, in forty countries, the coffee economy as a means of subsistence. But in recent years, while production is growing at the rate of five percent per year, consumption increases by only 2.5% a year. The decline in coffee prices, resulting in such a situation, is a serious obstacle to the development of some Latin American countries and Africa, whose exports of coffee account for a substantial part of its revenue in U.S. dollars.
A feature of the coffee economy has been, throughout its history, the phenomenon of the cycles of prosperity and decline. While the production is concentrated in tropical countries, the major consumer markets are located in Europe and North America. The instability of the coffee market, caused by changes in consumption and by weather conditions (the frost, for example), makes it fragile and dependent on the economy of the countries engaged in the monoculture coffee. This instability promotes trade speculation, especially in periods of economic crisis internationally.
The consumption of coffee is scattered in the middle of the nineteenth century and is linked to lifting the standard of living of the population of industrialized countries. Although the coffee an essential product, its consumption may be reduced during periods of economic instability or a crisis. One example occurred from 1929 to 1939, when the economic slump triggered drastic reduction of consumption in the United States and Europe. At the time, the injury to producers and traders of coffee in Brazil was so great that the government needed to intervene and create instruments of support, in an attempt to alleviate the situation. After the second world war the United States increased considerably the consumption and import of the product, making it responsible for the purchase of more than 65% of all coffee produced in the world. This framework was again being modified over the years and, in the 1980s, the participation of the United States market for coffee in the house of not more than thirty percent. The biggest importers, in addition to the United States, were found in Western Europe: Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands and Spain. Also, Japan and some Arab countries have become major importers.
Coffee. The international coffee market has since the 1960s, suffering the intervention of a new factor: the coffee. In most developed countries, such as the United States, Japan and some in Europe, already the soluble coffee to replace the traditional colander. One of technical problems in relation to coffee does for their manufacture is necessary to use a process (spray) that causes the loss of the flavor of the final product. Some industries are already using the process of freeze drying, allowing the processing of raw materials with less loss of quality or flavor so typical, particularly in grain Arabic, the highest acceptance around the world.
The participation of Brazilian coffee market is still small in view of the habit of coffee percolator, which preserves the flavor. Brazil has some of coffee plants, an area where the United States have been increasingly expanding, with the assembly of companies in their own country, Central America and Africa. Some Brazilian companies are associated with American groups and the production and export of soluble is stimulated by the government. Since the end of the 1970s opened up for coffee a new and promising market, represented by China and the countries of the former Soviet Union.
The swings in international prices of coffee producing countries led to develop a policy of understanding, through international agreements and conferences, not always successful. The Pan-American Coffee, held in 1958 in Rio de Janeiro, created the International Coffee Organization (ICO), with the participation of countries exporters and consumers. However, their meetings have never been peaceful due to clash of interests. The agreements try to alleviate the trend of imbalance between production and consumption. Initially there was some success but in recent years of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s recorded by a sharp fall in the prices of producer countries.
The expansion of coffee in Brazil had important consequences: initially did arise a new landscape in areas once covered with forests, gave birth at the time of the Empire, a new rural aristocracy, the so-called "coffee barons", as opulent as that of "lords of ingenuity," Northeastern sugar, consisting of rich landowners of the Paraíba Valley, the region of Campinas and southeast of Minas Gerais, the settlement of vast regions and the emergence of pioneering cities, the introduction of the Italian immigrant in the state of São Paul, the proliferation of railways and the rigging of the port of Santos, and finally, the displacement of the Brazilian economy for the Southeast.
At the end of the nineteenth century the coffee was the main export product of Brazil. Neither the abolition of slavery would undermine the situation. The economic history of Brazil started to turn around the "green gold". With the proclamation of the republic enriched Sao Paulo, owners of the national economy, began to replace the politicians Bahia and Rio de Janeiro in the conduct of business in the country. Production grew in excess and overproduction has created the first crisis. The situation worsened considerably with the crash of the stock exchange in New York, in October 1929, which led to the fall in coffee prices.
In subsequent years there was partial recovery. Producers have used the expedient international agreements and conferences to try to regulate the world market. At the beginning of the 1990s Brazil was still the main world producer but the insistence on production led to a dangerous policy of quantity rather than quality. Brazil became the leading producer of the condition of major producer. With all this, the cycle of one of its main sources of wealth is still far from over.
