Where is the coffee?: Coffee and Brazilian identity

Abstract

Brazil and Coffee. Historians tend to identify both. But coffee occupies a small place, even a negative one, in Brazilian national identity. This article shows that neither literature nor historical studies have focused their attention on it. The focus is always on colonial heritage, geography or racial mixture. Rural areas are seen as backward with no contributions to national identity, but rather hindering it. In colonial times coffee was unimportant. In the XIX century, it engendered slavery and latifundia. In our own century, coffee's most important role was that of being denied by urbanization and industry. If God is Brazilian, he does not drink coffee.