São Paulo – Brazil, Vietnam and Colombia are the world’s leading coffee producing countries today, but the fruit that makes a flavorful, stimulating drink was first identified in North Africa and “introduced” to the world by the Middle Eastern countries. These are some of the stories told in the exhibit Café, patrimônio cultural do Brasil: ciência, história e arte (Coffee, a part of Brazilian cultural heritage: science, history and art) now showing at Museu do Café, in Santos, a seaside city in the state of São Paulo. Visitors can check out the plants that originate the more traditional coffee varieties, Arabica and Conilon, and learn about the contraptions and methods that bring the product from plant to mug.
The earliest accounts of the origin of coffee are from North Africa. Legend has it that Kaldi, a goat herder, noticed that his animals grew restless when they grazed on the fruits and leaves from local bushes. He sampled the same fruit and confirmed the attributes of what would later come to be called coffee. This is one of the most widespread legends explaining the origin of coffee, and harks back to the year 575.
Seedlings of the plant were taken to Yemen, in the Middle East. Its consumption became popular in the area, which also became a coffee distribution hub. The world’s first cafeteria opened in 1475 in Mecca, the holy city of Muslims, in Saudi Arabia. According to the technical coordinator of Museu do Café, Marcela Rezek, the beverage was widely consumed in Middle East countries, but its usage was later scaled back because of its stimulating effect.
The product was mostly sold from Cairo, in Egypt, Damascus, in Syria, and Istanbul, in Turkey. From there, it got sent to other places. Coffee probably made its debut in Europe in what was the premier market for spices and luxury items in the continent: Venice, Italy.
Unearthing and recounting these and other stories was a laborious, time-consuming task that began in 2010, as the museum’s curators and researchers decided to produce this exhibit, which premiered towards the end of 2014 and will remain open for about five years.
“Some of the information was already known. We reproduced whatever we could get proof of. The role of the Middle East and Saudi Arabia in making coffee popular, for example, stems from the fact that the region was a hub for sale and distribution of products to the world, and also because the locals were in the habit of getting together to drink coffee, just like we do today,” said Rezek, who is of Syrian and Lebanese descent.
Established in 1998, Museu do Café is housed in the building, located halfway between Santos’ downtown area and the local port, where city’s Bolsa do Café (Coffee Stock Exchange) operated until the late 1950s. The building dates from 1922. There, importers and exporters would negotiate the prices of bags of coffee. The bulk of Brazil’s exports of coffee – a key driver of growth and industrialization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries – were closed onsite. The plant was grown at farms in the São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Paraná states and transported in trains to the Port of Santos, from whence it got shipped overseas.
Until this day, large volumes of coffee are shipped from the Port of Santos, but Bolsa do Café is no longer a forum for negotiation. The grand hall, where trading used to take place, is the starting point for touring the coffee world. One can end the visit by taking a sip.
The museum has a cafeteria specializing on coffee and coffee-based drinks. It offers beans from volcanic areas in Minas Gerais, grown in high-altitude areas, and blends concocted by the in-house baristas. Museu do Café also offers barista courses.
The old stock exchange, the museum and the cafeteria draw in a combined 260,000 visitors each year. Some of them arrive at the port. During cruise season, from November to March, the museum and cafeteria halls bustle with Japanese, German and Italian tourists looking for some history and, of course, lots of coffee.
Museu do Café
Rua XV de Novembro, 95, Downtown, Santos – São Paulo
Tuesdays to Saturdays from 9 am to 5 pm. Sundays from 10 am to 5 pm
From November through March, the museum opens on Mondays
Price: R$ 6 (free admission on Saturdays)
Information: http://www.museudocafe.org.br/en/ and +5513 3213-1750
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum