The Oregon daily journal., August 30, 1908, Page 40, Image 40

4
THE OREGON SUNDAY JOURNAL. PORTLAND, SUNDAY MORNING. AUGUST 30, 1903
37,
saw
' t " -
5 5
C 1 Ui ...I t I A " f V-"iii J
E
The Unique "Corner"
that Brazil Engineered
to Steady the Market
M 0 YOU remember , in those days
M M . when it was the accolade of adoles-
ttntc. 7 7lt niuuu ny iitui yuu
were allowed to have a cup of real cof
fee at dinner, how you traveled a couple
of miles on that wearisome weekly errand to
the distant tea and coffee store where they
still sold "genuine government Java"?
Mother usually, father oftentimes, un
earthed the place where that precious cache
of genuine government Java lay hidden.
Once it was tasted, "the Laguayras and Mar- k
acaibos, that had so palled on the family's
delicately' attuned taste, were hastily for
saken, whatever the moderate prices at
which they obligingly met the family purse.
What if real old government Java did
cost 48 cents per pound; we could always
better afford to skimj) on something else.
Your doled cup jpf coffee per diem
seemed but poor recompense fdf the morn
ing you had to sacrifice out of Saturday's
holiday for the errand. But suppose, now,
you could get real, old government Java,
with the honest age on it wouldn't you
gladly give that half day for the sublime
fragrance it exhales?
Well, this is no punishment of Tanta
lus. "Old government Java" bids fair to
come again via Brazil instead of Java, it
is true; but with the age upon it as of yore.
Brazil, having cornered the world's
market, having kidnapped the coffee trade
in its entirety, having put an end to coffee
gambling as summary as New York's ban
oh race-track gambling, is saving up S,ooor
OOO bags. It lias been saving them for a
year, and it is carrying a debt of $45,000,
OOO in order to keep on saving them.
And every day the rich, delicious fla
vor of the contents of those bags improves.
TWO-THIRDS of tln world's pfffee supply
is ordinarily produced by Brazil. The
coffee year is all the year. IJcpinuin.i;
officially July 1, it ends officially on
June 30.
The crop of lf'iVi-T whs borne on Mich mnr
velously rood winds thnt they blew everybody
bad fortune. The usual crop., of from 1,000,000
to 31.000,000 baps, was nearly flout.!.,:
Other countries had been doing tlit ir fhar
of the world's production, in previous years, as
Fteadily as had Brazil. The world had enough
coffee.
Now, however, with Brazil garnering a crop
f 20.000,000 bags, there is ,-ueh a repletion that,
if it were dumped upon the market, the prices
would fall to almost ruinous levels.
Sjt is far frojmleing a simple trade issue
with Brazil. No country, anywhere, has its pros
perity so vitally hound up in the profits of a
single crop. The very Government faced pov
erty, if the world's coff' e prices should be cut in
half.
Brazil wag in the i'-itien of a man in-Teftt-d
with, a moii. jx'v who confronted bank
ruptcy nr coram h ti d d v a-h. as he chose to de
cide. The history of ;, ,-ale coffee prices
bowed a range from r.'j o-ms to 21 cents per
pound, with a lot c f 'peculators enjoying fluc
tuations varying from 3 of a cent to 5 cents on
tLe pound, a a year's price were high or low.
. Brazil did not hesitate W,g. The state of
Sao Paulo, bai kkd by the frdrl government of
BrsiiL beraiiK the financial ag : t assuming the
rponililit for the in.! unusual "corner"'
knoa in ar.y crop. That at because Sao
Paulo waa the leading coffee -growing ttite in
the rry-uHic.
Legislation n enctcU tkh empowered
tl e rove rr. sent ta borrow money to buy from
tii i Utter the iurplut of tLeir ercj. Tbe
ft
m m
"N
TT" f i '
LTT'1' ".-- - -
ft"
st mm
niraiiniiitwrpMi r
Ij.ii I urn niwiiS'
MP"
w
AH
Mitt
ii xii
4 Lf4
1
M
Within a qifarter of a century, the capital
city has expanded from a place of JJO.OOO persons
to a commercial and educational center whose
inhabitants number a quarter of a million. It,
is the "college town" of Brazil, and it ha3 ncarlyi
800 educational institutions.
Out among the plantations there are "fa-!
zendas," such as the Dumont tract, owned by an
English syndicate, containing over 100,000 acres,'
with 6,000,000 cffee trees under cultivation. The
laborers may be Indians or Italian immigrants,
with never enough of them to supply the planta
tions' steadily increasing needs. But the resi-,
deuces of the proprietors of planters like
Bnrao Ceraldo do Eezende, with their half mil-,
lion trees adorning verdant hillsides are mag-,
nificejit "casas," with gardens showing wonder
ful collections of orchids and hundreds of varie
ties of roses.. They arc the palaces of the
coffee kings, surpassing many of the palaces of
the new, asw;ell as the old, world in the florid
luxury of their appointments. I
We drink, Java now, and Mocha, and fondly
imagine they come from Arabia and the island
of Java.' They come from Brazil.
The best qualities and grades of that splen--did
Sao Paulo coffee, carefully selected, are
shipped to Europe, thence to Egypt, thence to
Arabia. They start as a f ne grade of "Santos,"
because the port of Santos, in Brazil, was their
point of departure. They end as real Arabian
Mocha, returning to this western hemisphere
duly packed, as was the original Mocha of Araby
the Blest, and costing 45 cents per pound, instead
of the 5 cents they cost at the port of Santos.
WORLD-FAMOUS FLAVORS
Si
. mmmm
jot77fj of cffee lcejr
house of Eothschild loanoi! $15,VMT.fK)0, secured
by the export duties on coffee, (ireat mercantile
houses, concerned with the coffee trade, loaned
various sums, secured by the ooffoo itself. In
all, $4.", OOn.OOO was obtained on loan fur the cre
ation of the new monopoly.
With that money, the Brazilian government
bought up nearly S.IMHI.OOO .bag of coffee, now
worth from $10 to 111 per bag. It has been
stored in warehouses in Santos, liio Janeiro,
New York, Havre. Hamburg, and several other
centers of trade, for f-ale at the prices fixed by
the open market, now ruling steady at 6 cents
per pound. Whenever the market rates go lower
the Brazilian government simply holds on to its
huge reserve; when it goes higher, it readily
sells, in order to get ca-h to lighten the burden
of debt it carries.
The results of the plcn have been a bene
ficial as they are diverse. This fall, with all
other surplus supplies cleared out of the market,
speculation in coffee has been absolutely killrd.
Terhaps no other crop is. orVan be, o staple in
ita price for years to come.
The planters not only received normal prieea
for their bumper crop, but they reoeired profit
able rate for all of St. Th world a pro
tected, fo a long period, against not only those
crop tbortafei which are' as likely to occur as
is a crop surplusage, but against iu own stead
ily growing needs. And tLe Brazilian govern
ment not only reaped its- full income from the
year's crop, but it stands toearn Lome millions
of profit out of the speculation into which neces
sity precipitated it.
These millions, and their juggling, do look
imposing. But, to any c noisseur of coffee
to those who.deligbt in it as did a Napoleon, a
Voltaire, or the Talleyrand who uttered the
apostrophe which has become a classic in hyper
bole the important thing Is that so many mil
lion bags are likely to live on unused, developing
their exquisite aroma until tLe magic eight years
shall have elapsed that make coffee truly fit for a
king or a Talleyrand.
If one were to journey into Sao Paulo he
would find himself in a state eompriing 75,5)0
oquare miles, where 50,000 of thov miles are
given over to coffee exclusively. All the year
around there hangs over it a perfume that can
be likened only to the perfume of the cherry
blossom, just as the fruit of the coffee tree re
sembles the cherry most nearly in its peculiar
sweetness. The bean we know is one-half of the
pit. of the fruit, two beans being commonly
united by a tough, parchment -like skij, broken
and whiffed awayby machinery in the course of
preparation for the market.
The world has found their flavor as delicate,'
their aroiha as inspiring, as the qualities which;
were enjoyed by the older generation, when it
drank the original Mocha and Java. But, until
the bumper crop of 1906-7 impelled the govern
ment of Brazil into the byways of finance, the;
world carried no reserve which could acquire
the age so indispensable for the true flavor rel-j
ished by the connoisseur. Indeed, it is in Brazil;
alone that the traditions of coffee are respected;
and observed, and there only by the great landed'
proprietors whose resources enable them to agej
their coffee as the very rich of Europe age their,
wines. !
To them, then, has fallen the lost heritage,
of the world the bliss of a cup of good coffee
such coffee as you grudged your half Saturday
for when you had to travel those distant blocks
to the store for the real, old government Java.'
Always in a perfectly dry atmosphere, kept'
for a period of eight years, the home coffee of
Ihe Brazilian planter compares with the Arabian
Mocha of the world's commerce as wine of tho
comet year compared with the wines vaunted by(
amateurs of vintages that followed.
"o who has the rare fortune to be the guest
at a famous fazenda, finds himself in a settle-,
ment which is, in effect, a town. The hundreds
of work people have tbeir homes separate for
individual families, while lord over all is the
proprietor and host. He dispenses an almost
feudal hospitality to his visitors, and their en
joyment of the viands set forth is taken in the
midst of a luxury of nature and art such as the
wildest extravagance of Indian potentates could
not overpass.
There, to the true coffee lover, is the only
fit setting for the cup that cheers. Tho host
will offer only coffee that has had its due allot
ment of years, according to his particular bias of i
opinion. the ultra nice in taste condescending to
nothing younger thar the eight years esteemed
as giving the full flavor.
He has heard, perhaps, of the northern prac
tice of buying coffee already roasted and ground
and then kept for a week or two. lie is not'
wroth oyer the heresy; he is merely pitiful.
Eoj you, his guest, the beans -re roasted and!
ground at the time the nob.c drink is to be of- ,
fered. They are reduced tj a fine powder, and
never, never boiled. Compressed in a woollen
bag. the powder is subjected to a pouring of hot
water, which slowly peTcelates, drawing from
the powder the finest, most delicate flavors thai
have been released by the previous roasting.
That is coffee to be drunk reverently,
thankfully, as one takes a boon made to renew
the appetites of youth snd to renew the rosy
radianc of Its dreams.
Today, by the grace1 of the good wind that
blew no one good, and by dint "of that enter
prise of Brazil's which has made it food at last
to eTery one, the minimum of two years, at
which the expert will consent tj use even the
best qualities of coffees, is being rspidly rounded
out by-those 8,000,000 lags yet in the ware
house. .;