Coffee From Brazil To You (1938)

you you trophy the universal beverage originating in the old world has achieved its greatest development in the new it is grown in most of the countries of Central and South America and Brazil is the greatest producer the principal coffee growing states are so Paulo Minas Gerais Rio de Janeiro and Parana let us start on a visit to a Brazilian coffee fazenda and there observe the process that must be followed in bringing coffee from plantation to consumer we enter at the great coffee part of Santo then proceed inland by rail to the progressive city of Sao Paulo [Music] and continue our journey westward to Brazil's great coffee growing area the central mountain plateau here huge estates containing millions of trees are devoted to coffee growing it takes many years and a great deal of painstaking work to produce a plantation like this for when a new plantation is developed the area selected first must be cleared of trees and underbrush plantation workers cut the underbrush down on the trees and rush are permitted to dry and the area is finally cleared by Barney [Music] Brazilian coffee grows best in the reddish clay soil known as Terra Rocha [Music] Brazilian coffee is grown from seed planted associated nursery the seeds for planting are chosen from specially selected coffee trees seven or eight years old these seeds are planted in beds about three inches apart and two inches deep the seeds germinate in about eight weeks when the plants reach a height of eight inches they are transplanted to a new bed at six months they are again transplanted into loose baskets and that 18 months the plants are ready for permanent planting coffee plantations are usually laid out with trees planted ten feet apart in each direction resulting in approximately 450 trees to the acre the 18 months old tree basket included is planted in a hole about two feet deep [Music] after the hole has been filled they ditch his dog around the new coffee tree to retain the water needed by the young plant after several months the new coffee tree has become rugged and strong after three years a few berries may appear but full production is not achieved until the fifth or sixth year the leaves of the trees are always green slightly waxy and from four to five inches long the plantation develops cleaning up around the trees is essential for many enemy plants tend to choke off the coffee if it is not properly weeded in time also fertilizer must be added to replenish the supply of food the coffee tree expects from the soil the coffee trees blossom during August September and October the white flowers cling closely to the stems of the trees turning the plantation into a sea of white and here is a fully developed coffee tree ready to yield its products the berries of a coffee tree are first green then yellow then red somewhat resembling ripe cherry in stripping a tree of its berries a piece of canvas is placed on the ground to catch the berries as they fall quite often leaves and branches drop in with the berries on the canvas most of these are picked off by hand you the balance are eliminated by a quick toss and the picker has only the clean berries left he works here during the day hundreds of these bags are filled with coffee berries good coffee pickers can average two to five hundred pounds of coffee a day each tree bearing approximately two pounds of coffee annually a coffee tree produces four crops up to its 15th or 20th year wagons loaded with bags of freshly picked coffee arrived at the large storage tanks near the plantation headquarters where they pause to allow the workers to unload their burden of brownish red berry bag after bag is dumped into a huge tank which is slowly filled with water when the tank is full the berries are floated to the nearby washing tanks by means of an intricate system of small canal [Applause] upon entering these large washing tank coffee berries are agitated this agitation prevents the berries from being affected by the hot Sun if exposed for any length of time after the berries have been allowed to soak for a sufficient period they are loosed to the rotary washer where they undergo a vigorous washing process this process removes grit and other foreign substances from the outer cover of the coffee bean then the coffee berries are sluiced to waiting bucket it is now ready for drying the washed berries are set out to dry on a large concrete platform called Tarell [Music] this is also a long process requiring about three weeks of dry weather during this period the coffee berries must be turned at regular intervals to avoid too long an exposure to the heat of the Sun during the Sun drying period great care is taken to protect the coffee berries from dampness and possible rain they are raked into piles at the end of each day each morning they are again spread out in some and turned off periodically by the workers once this drying process has been completed the coffee bean is ready to be separated from its outer protective covering most plantations in Brazil maintain their own hauling and processing plant this machine is designed for hauling the coffee berry being especially used remove the outer coverings which have been around the bean up to this time after the coffee beans are whole they are graded by size in this automatic sizing machine the shaking action causes the different sized beans magically to find their proper compartment even in this day of modern machinery a further inspection of a coffee by keen-eyed girls is made then each bag is weighed and sent to the plantation warehouse for storage until ordered for shipment to Santa [Music] [Applause] you on receipt of shipping orders the coffee is loaded into trucks for transportation to nearby railroad where it is dispatched to Santos a coffee shipping port of Brazil enroute to Santos let us stop and visit sale Paulo coffee capital of the world coffee in Sao Paulo are almost synonymous terms while the growth of the city is due largely to the expansion of the coffee industry modern skyscrapers got the horizon of this metropolis of South America the minister lapa house is one of the most magnificent buildings of Sao Paulo the famous ether on the museum once the home of the emperors of Brazil a city of many beautiful tropical parts home of the South Hall of coffee Institute now a huge warehouses of the National Coffee Department Santos the greatest coffee shipping part of the world through which passed more than one and one-half billion pounds of coffee every year the modern concoct with space for 50 ocean liners to carry the coffee of Brazil to all parts of the world the Santos coffee exchange is the heart of the business life of the greatest coffee exporting city in the world it's busy streets crowded with coffee brokers who sell their courage to the grading department where experts examine the green coffee rust by its fragrance then by its appearance and also by the number of imperfections found in the sample boring the coffee beans intercept is the method used for determining the various sized bean while lots of a coffee are been roasted and each sample is tasted to determine its flavor characteristics exactly on reaching Santos from the interior the coffee is taken to the huge warehouses on the docks and put into new bags especially designed for export purposes [Music] truckload after truckload of copy finds its way through the busy streets to the docks and waiting ships the United States is the largest consumer of Brazilian copy but great quantities are also shipped to Europe and other parts of the world this signal for departure given the ship leaves port at sea special care is taken to ventilate the holes where the bags of copy are stored the temperature always averages 80 degrees on arrival in New York no time is lost in unloading the cargo of coffee after the government permits to land and deliver is in the hands of a customs inspector in the dock as the bags come up out of the hole the foreman directs the laborers to place them on the dock section chopped off for each consignment Coffee again is sampled on arrival in New York the importer takes samples of several bags of the new shipment the new shipment of coffee is transferred to the roasting plant where automatic machinery lifts the bags to the large storage room before roasting cafes of different types are blended to produce exactly the flavor desire different brands of course use different blend automatic machinery mixes the coffee's together thoroughly now the coffee is released to the roasting cylinders where in this most modern of coffee plants the time and degree of roaster is automatically controlled to ensure absolute uniformity properly roasted the coffee is discharged into cooling panel where the coffee is constantly stirred allowing it to cool before releasing it to be packaged by means of automatic weighing packaging and sealing machinery coffee is placed in bags still in the bean so that all expression is retained to be delivered to the consumer thousands upon thousands of bags of coffee are packaged and shipped from this roasting plant to meet the demand for coffee by millions of people every day Coffee is one of the principal product of the American a delightful beverage enjoyed by millions the world over [Music] coffee truly a gift of the Americas to the world this educational picture is presented by the pan-american Union the international organization of the 21 American Republic for additional films or information regarding the republics of the American continent right to the plan American Union Washington DC [Music]