Happy National Coffee Day, Brazil!

Flavors of Brazil almost missed Brazil's National Coffee Day, being celebrated today, May 24. And what a celebration it must be, as it appears that Brazilians are the world's champion coffee drinkers. We would have guessed that title would have gone to the USA, where coffee is served in bottomless cups in Interstate truck stops and where urbanites daren't walk the streets without a Venti in their hands. But no, according to Brazil's National Coffee Producers Association, Brazilians drink more coffe per person than citizens of any other country - the total is a whopping 82 liters (about 82 quarts) per person per year. (Note that other sources dispute these numbers, so they can't be taken as gospel.)

Considering the fact that Brazilians don't drink coffee in large cups, the number of cups of coffee served annually in Brazil must be astronomical. Brazilian coffee is served in a standard coffee cup at breakfast and in tiny, tiny plastic cups (for a drink called cafezinho) throughout the day.

There's a lot of talk in the media these days about Brazil's current rise to the top level of the world's energy producers. What a lot of people must not realize is that the energy they're talking about is caffeine!

Incidentally, Brazil isn't just the champion in coffee drinking. It's also the world's largest coffee-producing country - by a long shot. According to Bloomberg, for the 2010-2011 season, Brazil produced 54,500,000 million bags of coffee. At 60 kg/132 lb per bag, that's about 3.5 million tons. The second largest coffee-producing nation, Vietnam, produced only about a third as much.

So tip your coffee cup and raise a toast to coffee-loving Brazilians.