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.

Mango Season Has Arrived - Yippee, Hooray!

Although we're aware that winter is on the doorstep in much of the Northern Hemisphere, if not already knocking at the door, down here in Brazil the dog days of summer are upon us. Even in Fortaleza, where there is little annual variation in temperature, there's been a noticeable increase in temperature recently. And in more southernly parts of Brazil, they've gone on to daylight savings time. Hotter days and nights, and longer days are signs of summer everywhere in the world, but in Brazil there's another way to tell it's summer - it's mango season.

And how can you tell it's mango season here in Fortaleza? Easy... just walk the residential streets of the city for a few blocks, and look up from time to time into the foliage of the large shade trees that line the streets. It's hard to miss the bright yellow/orange kidney-shaped fruits dangling in the foliage canopy. They're all mangos - and all ready for plucking - ready, that is, if you can figure out a way to get 30 or 40 feet up into the tree to snag a couple.

But's there's an easier way to enjoy mango season than monkeying your way up a gigantic mango tree - just head for the local produce store or supermarket and you'll see huge bins of mangoes - usually at least four or five different varieties. All ready to eat and all getting cheaper by the day.

Mangoes grow almost everywhere in Brazil and when they're in season they're ubiquitous. In the trees, in shops and stores and on street vendors carts. Or even at stop lights - most intersections have fruit vendors who will sell a basket of fruit to you through the car window while you wait for the light to change, and these days, the basket is likely to be mangoes.

Brazil's mango crop is colossal. According to government statistics, Brazil produces about 825,000 tons of mangoes each year. Even considering that  over 90% of the crop is consumed domestically in Brazil, the remaining 67,000 tons that are exported is enough to make Brazil the world's second-largest mango exporter, trailing only Mexico.

Just as strawberry addicts gorge themselves during strawberry season, or lovers of corn-on-the-cob make August meals that are just corn, corn and more corn, Brazilians love to indulge their taste for mangoes during the summer. Most of the mango crop is either eaten fresh or processed into juice, but there are many traditional Brazilian recipes that call for mangoes in one form or another. In the next couple of days, mangoes will be our focus here at Flavors of Brazil.