The Gazette

Coffee Drinking Is Aid to Business:
Rector Tells of Brazilian Customs

World Famous Restaurant

IN BRAZIL, where much of the
finest coffee is grown, the coffee
shop is a national institution, and
coffee drinking is almost a rite.
Much business is transacted in the
coffee shops.
As the English
serve tea to break up the business
day, so the Brazilians use coffee.
When an important deal is pending,
the principals often depart
the office for the nearest coffee
shop and discuss
matters more
sociably, and often more effectively, over a demi-tasse.

In the United States the drug
store is the nearest equivalent to
the coffee shop, but the average
drug store is not an ideal place to
transact business, for it lacks
calm and quiet.

Last week I spoke at some
length with Eduardo Muller-Camps,
the assistant general manager
of the American Coffee Cor-
poration, which markets 200,000,000
pounds of coffee yearly for
the A. & P. food stores. During
our conversation we discussed the
coffee drinking habits of the Bra-
zilian people. I was very much
interested because Brazil is the
coffee center of the world, and I
wondered just how seriously Bra-
zilians took their coffee.

Mr. Muller-Camps, a personable
and interesting young Brazilian
from Santos, told me that although
it is hot in Brazil, the natives know
nothing about iced coffee. They
drink the beverage hot, and with-
out
cream.
In the home it is
taken much as here-with breakfast and, perhaps, demi-tasse after
dinner. Business people, however,
use their coffee drinking as an excuse to break up the business day.
On the slightest provocation the
Brazilian business man will go to
a nearby coffee shop and have
a few cups of black coffee. I
think that this coffee drinking idea
as an aid to business dealings
might well be accepted by American business men, for it leads to
a feeling of good fellowship and
congeniality.

I was much interested when Mr.
Muller-Camps told me that iced
coffee was unknown in Brazil. He
did tell me, however that in the
exclusive restaurants coffee mixed
with ice cream was served, and this
they called Cafe Viennese-coffee
in the style of Vienna.
This
brought up many memories for me
-memories of my Cook's tour
through Europe when I made a
long stopover in Vienna.
I
remember Cafe Viennese and coffee
as it was served in Demel's, exclusive caterer to royalty and ex-
royalty. In this ultra-fashionable
restaurant coffee is served with
a great deal of ceremony. Fresh
coffee is served black in beautiful
silver pots. Heated milk or cream
is added. It is sugared to taste
and topped with the Viennese
"Schlag-Ober"
(just
good
old
American whipped cream.)

And speaking of Cook's tours
and coffee recalls a question put
to me by a young Italian, in the
diplomatic service in Rome, who
asked me why Italian coffee was
so unsatisfactory. I went into his
kitchen and discovered to my horror that his cook a thrifty Italian
woman of ample proportions, used
the coffee grounds over and over
again. When I explained to the
young man that fresh coffee was
vitally important in the brewing
of good coffee, and that the coffee
pot method his cook used needed
coarse ground coffee, I made a
lifelong friend. He argued his
cook into brewing fresh, coarse-
ground coffee always. He told me
later that he made many excellent
associations
for himself
through the fame of the coffee he
served in his home.