No country grows more coffee than Brazil, which in recent seasons has produced well over a third of the world's coffee.

Coffee once dominated Brazil’s economy, with São Paulo at its center in the early twentieth century. After the 1929 crash, the government bought and destroyed tens of millions of bags over the following decade and a half to support prices. Researchers in Campinas also began breeding work that would reshape Brazilian coffee.

The 1970s changed where and how coffee grew. Coffee leaf rust prompted extensive replanting. Then, on July 18, 1975, a “black frost” killed hundreds of millions of trees in Paraná. Many farmers switched to soy and grain, and rural families left the land. Coffee production shifted especially toward Minas Gerais and Cerrado Mineiro.

International export quotas ended in 1989, followed by the closure of Brazil’s federal coffee institute in 1990. Farmers, cooperatives and exporters entered an open market. Since then, Brazil has increased yields, expanded conilon production and developed its own specialty coffee sector.