Nearly 400 years ago in 1727, coffee production came to Brazil from French Guiana. Coffee production in Brazil, since it became so profitable, also became political. Some of the more influence coffee producers were given the edge by setting quotas for coffee production.The quality but smaller coffee producers could not make the quotas. Brazilian coffee producers, therefore, focused on quantity and let quality go since there was no profit in it anymore. The coffee bean estates in Brazil are for the most part about 1000 acres big. A quarter of the coffee estates are less than 5000 acres, and only 4% are larger than 5000 acres. Brazil produces a quarter of the world’s coffee and 80% of that coffee is Arabica.
As recently as 1990, a new government in Brazil threw the quota demands out the window and opened up the smaller plantations thus re-opening the specialty coffee from Brazil (where buyers could order beans from a particular coffee estate)
The coffee houses in the United States are now taking a second look at the specialty coffee and starting to see real quality again. How coffee beans are processed is extremely important to the flavor of brewed coffee. I will go into more detail on processing later on.
It almost counts more toward flavor and quality than location. Location ,which means climate and soil conditions, does lend it own taste to flavor and is important but it is a subtle influence.
Brazil has a number of distinct growing regions that produce coffee better than the rest and those coffee beans bring in more profit. Each of these areas is as large as a small country and coffee houses probably treat them as such.
