Café Culture in Turn-of-the-Century Rio de Janeiro

Author: Nicole Lhuillier

"No coffee is better than Brazilian coffee," according to this advertisement. (Source: Getty Images)

In the nineteenth century, Brazil became a major producer and exporter of coffee. The advertisement above was most likely intended for a French audience (an insignia in the lower left corner indicates Paris). But, in a way, it still reflects the coffee culture in Rio de Janeiro in that the city was shaped by Parisian sensibilities, particularly during the Belle Époque (1894-1914). As in Western Europe, coffee was a popular beverage in Rio, and cafes were spaces with a unique sociability that revolved around intellectual and artistic activity. This Narrativa presents several coffeeshops and explores the culture around coffee consumption in late-19th-century-to-early-20th century Rio.

A coffee plant grows in Rio de Janeiro circa 1866. (Source: Georges Leuzinger, Café in Brasiliana Fotográfica.)

The coffee plant arrived in Brazil from French Guiana in the 1720s and was introduced to the state of Rio de Janeiro in 1770. A Belgian monk started planting coffee at the Capuchin monastery in Rio in 1774.¹

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^{1. William H. Ukers, All About Coffee, New York: The Tea and Coffee Trade Journal Company, 1922. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28500/28500-h/28500-h.htm#Sidewalk_Cafe_Lisbon, 204-5, 9.}

Workers toil in the coffee drying yard of a plantation in Vassouras, Rio de Janeiro state circa 1890. (Source: Marc Ferrez, Fazenda da Cachoeira - terreiro de secagem de café in Brasiliana Fotográfica.)

Early on, before cultivation moved inland, coffee was grown on the Corcovado mountain in Tijuca.² Brazilian coffee production started to boom decades later, in the 1830s, and Brazil would become the world’s largest producer.³ Rural labor--which included slaves--and railroads enabled a trade to flourish from inland plantations to coastal ports.

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^{2. Mary C. Karasch, “Rio de Janeiro: A Colonial City until 1850,” Rice GIS, accessed October 15, 2021, https://ricegis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=cb6d068b82494db4a2910720494d7c1d.}

^{3. William H. Ukers, All About Coffee, New York: The Tea and Coffee Trade Journal Company, 1922, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28500/28500-h/28500-h.htm#Sidewalk_Cafe_Lisbon, 204-5.}

From the 1850s, Rio de Janeiro led the country in coffee exports. (Data source: C.F. Van Delden Laërne, Brazil and Java. Report on Coffee-Culture in America, Asia and Africa, to H. E. the Minister of the Colonies, 388.)

Transported over rail and/or sea, the produce of the following areas supplied the Rio coffee trade in the late nineteenth century:

western and central parts of Rio de Janeiro state
Minas Gerais
northern parts of São Paulo
Espírito Santo
a small amount from the minor ports between Rio and Santos.

The average yield of coffee per tree in the Rio de Janeiro region was 805 grams (“reckoned by export from the fazenda, thus exclusive of home consumption”).

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^{4. C. F. Van Delden Laërne, Brazil and Java. Report on Coffee-Culture in America, Asia and Africa, to H. E. the Minister of the Colonies, London: W. H. Allen & C(o), 1885, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/U0113111486/MOME?sid=bookmark-MOME&xid=bb2c38c8&pg=4, 368.}

In the late nineteenth century, an enormous amount of coffee left Brazil through Rio de Janeiro. (Source: Smith, Brazil, the Amazons, and the coast, 505.)

Rio de Janeiro was one of the country’s two main ports for coffee, most of which came from the provinces of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Minas Gerais. (Santos in São Paulo was the other major port.)⁵ From 1878 to 1883, Rio received about 4,000 to 20,000 60-kg bags each day (based on monthly total deliveries). About 73% percent of the annual Brazilian coffee exports came out of Rio in 1885. Most of the exports went to the United States and Europe.⁶

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^{5. Herbert H. (Herbert Huntington) Smith, Brazil, the Amazons and the Coast, New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1879, http://archive.org/details/brazilamazonscoa00smit, 538-9.}

^{6. C. F. Van Delden Laërne, Brazil and Java. Report on Coffee-Culture in America, Asia and Africa, to H. E. the Minister of the Colonies, London: W. H. Allen & C(o), 1885, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/U0113111486/MOME?sid=bookmark-MOME&xid=bb2c38c8&pg=4, 229, 397, 348, 398.}

Brazil's coffee production far outpaced that of its neighbors. (Source: Clarence-Smith and Topik, The Global Coffee Economy in Africa, Asia and Latin America, 1500-1989, 421.)

In 1885, a foreign observer wrote that in the previous eight years, coffee became Brazil’s national beverage.⁷ Of the 260 million kilograms produced in the country in 1876, about 20% was for domestic consumption.⁸ The coffee consumed in Rio was most likely a Brazilian product. Unlike the exports, these coffee beans were roasted and ground in Brazil, for and by Brazilians. (In data from the July 25, 1883 Customs bulletin, coffee is not listed as a good imported into Rio de Janeiro, for instance.)⁹

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^{7. C. F. Van Delden Laërne, Brazil and Java. Report on Coffee-Culture in America, Asia and Africa, to H. E. the Minister of the Colonies, London: W. H. Allen & C(o), 1885, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/U0113111486/MOME?sid=bookmark-MOME&xid=bb2c38c8&pg=4, 349.}

^{8. Brazil Commission, Universal Exhibition, The Empire of Brazil at the Universal Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia, Rui de Janeiro: Typ. e lithographia do Imperial instituto artistico, 1876, 416.}

^{9. C. F. Van Delden Laërne, Brazil and Java. Report on Coffee-Culture in America, Asia and Africa, to H. E. the Minister of the Colonies, London: W. H. Allen & C(o), 1885, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/U0113111486/MOME?sid=bookmark-MOME&xid=bb2c38c8&pg=4, 204.}

Brazil's pavilion at the 1876 Philadelphia International Exhibition was a café. (Source: William Notman, Pavilhões do Brasil na Exposição Internacional de Filadélfia - Pavilhão Café do Brasil in Brasiliana Fotográfica.)

“In Brazil every one drinks coffee and at all hours. Cafés making a specialty of the beverage, and modeled after continental originals, are to be found a-plenty in Rio de Janeiro, Santos, and other large cities. . . . In Spain and Portugal the French type of café flourishes as in Italy,” wrote William H. Ukers in All About Coffee (1922). So it followed in Brazil, a former Portuguese territory wherein Western influence continued to be potent.

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^{10. William H. Ukers, All About Coffee, New York: The Tea and Coffee Trade Journal Company, 1922, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28500/28500-h/28500-h.htm#Sidewalk_Cafe_Lisbon, 691.}

This list of cafes, botequins, and billiards in Rio de Janeiro in 1865 continues on the next page of the book. (Source: Laemmert, Almanak Administrativo Mercantil e Industrial da Corte e Provincia do Rio de Janeiro, 616.)

Cafés were present in Rio by 1845 or earlier, and their number rose quickly. There were about 50 cafés in 1867, 139 cafés in 1875, and 278 cafés in 1887, according to Hermeto Lima.¹¹

Cafés were a significant part of the city’s public life. Several coffeehouses were located in squares: Café Paris and Café da Ordem in Largo da Carioca, Café Lamas and Café Araponga in Largo do Machado, and the Café de Java in Largo de São Francisco, for instance.¹²

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^{11. Hermeto Lima, “Os Cafés do Rio,” in Antigos Cafés do Rio de Janeiro, by Danilo Gomes, 30–32, Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Kosmos Editora, 1989, 31.}

^{12. Danilo Gomes, Antigos Cafés do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Kosmos Editora, 1989.}

Café da Ordem, in the lower left of this photograph, was part of the Largo da Carioca. (Source: A. Ribeiro, Largo da Carioca in Brasiliana Fotográfica.)

“The restaurants are fairly numerous : some are very good, all are expensive, but there are several where it is possible to go in and have just a cup of black coffee, which is most agreeable on a hot day.” -traveler Frank Bennett in 1914¹³

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^{13. Frank, Bennett, Forty Years in Brazil, London: Mills & Boon, limited, 1914, http://archive.org/details/fortyyearsinbraz00benn, 74-5.}

At a bar on Rua Direita, the drink of choice for these well-dressed men is most certainly coffee. (Source: Chichico Alkmim, Bar na rua direita in Brasiliana Fotográfica.)

As in Europe, Rio de Janeiro’s cafes were social spaces that fostered intellectual culture; educated men gathered there to discuss art, literature, and politics. English visitor Alured Gray Bell wrote that he was intrigued and amused by the “much cafe-talk of revolution” he would hear in 1911 and 1912. (Such talk ultimately abated.)¹⁴ Photographs depict groups of well-dressed men seated around small tables.¹⁵

“The Brazilian loves to frequent the cafés and to sip his coffee at his ease. He is very continental in this respect. The wide-open doors, and the round-topped marble tables, with their small cups and saucers set around a sugar basin, make inviting pictures. The customer pulls toward him one of the cups and immediately a waiter comes and fills it with coffee, the charge for which is about three cents. It is a common thing for a Brazilian to consume one dozen to two dozen cups of black coffee a day. If one pays a social visit, calls upon the president of the Republic, or any lesser official, or on a business acquaintance, it is a signal for an attendant to serve coffee. Café au lait is popular in the morning; but except for this service, milk or cream is never used. In Brazil, as in the Orient, coffee is a symbol of hospitality.” -William H. Ukers¹⁶

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^{14. Alured Gray Bell, The Beautiful Rio de Janeiro, London, W. Heinemann, 1914, http://archive.org/details/beautifulriodeja00bell, 136.}

^{15. Danilo Gomes, Antigos Cafés do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Kosmos Editora, 1989, 49, 52, 90.}

^{16. William H. Ukers, All About Coffee, New York: The Tea and Coffee Trade Journal Company, 1922, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28500/28500-h/28500-h.htm#Sidewalk_Cafe_Lisbon, 691.}

In the bottom center, patrons sit at tables outside Café Sympatia. (Source: Anon, Bar Sympathia in Brasiliana Fotográfica.)

A streetside seating culture existed at some Rio cafés like the Café Sympatia (A Sympathia) at 96-A Avenida Rio Branco. (The adjoining church, Igreja da Venerável Ordem de Nossa Senhora da Conceição e Boa Morte, lost some of its outer spaces when the Avenida Rio Branco was built in the early 1900s.)¹⁷

Alured Gray Bell took note of the sociability of the outdoor cafe spaces, which allowed customers to passively engage in larger public life (rather than be immersed in the world of the coffeeshop).

“To the Avenida Rio Branco at some time of the day, or at least on one or two occasions weekly, come the majority of Cariocas — ‘Fazendo a Avenida’ (doing the avenue), is the popular phrase. . . . The most serious business man or politician and the gilded and some of the ungilded youth of Rio make the Avenida their daily lounge. The café proprietors are permitted to place their chairs on the inner and outer sides of the elegant pavements. Here sit the old and young inhabitants of Rio for an afternoon, and here ‘process’ at slow pace the beauties and the non-beauties of feminine Rio, for to shop, for to ‘cinema,’ for to observe, and for to be observed, and, if luck will have it, for to be snapshotted by the photographer of some illustrated Carioca weekly.” -Alured Gray Bell, 1914¹⁸

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^{17. Histórias, fotografias e significados das igrejas mais bonitas do Brasil. “Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Conceição e Boa Morte – Rio de Janeiro, RJ,” January 10, 2017. https://sanctuaria.art/2017/01/10/igreja-de-nossa-senhora-da-conceicao-e-boa-morte-rio-de-janeiro-rj/.}

^{18. Alured Gray Bell, The Beautiful Rio de Janeiro, London, W. Heinemann, 1914, http://archive.org/details/beautifulriodeja00bell, 22.}

This illustration from 1850 shows “A Fama do Café com Leite” on the left of the theater facing the Praça de Constituição. (Source: Friedrich Pustkow, Vistas do Rio de Janeiro.)

Officially named “A Fama do Café com Leite” (“The Fame of Coffee with Milk”), Café Braguinha was located in the Praça de Constituição (now Praça Tiradentes), across the Teatro São Pedro de Alcântara (now Teatro João Caetano). The site of the cafe was historic as Jose Bonifacio da Andrada de Silva, the Brazilian statesman known as the “Patriarch of Independence,” had lived at that location.

In the mid-nineteenth century, educated men like doctors and lawyers as well as men of the theater frequented Café Braguinha. The owner was close friends with the important actor and director Juan Caetano, and plays were performed at the café.¹⁹

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^{19. Danilo Gomes, Antigos Cafés do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Kosmos Editora, 1989, 120-1.}

On festive occasions, like the end of the Paraguay War in 1870, the café would be lit up and the facade decorated with flags. (Gomes 120-1) (Source: Anon, Café do Braguinha : ornamentado por ocasião dos festejos do final da Guerra do Paraguai in Brasiliana Fotográfica)

Café do Braguinha was established in 1845 or earlier. Its bombastic advertisements in the newspapers made it the most famous among the cafés at the time. Eminent writers like Machado de Assis, Paula Brito, José de Alencar, Laurindo Rabello, and Manuel Macedo were patrons.²⁰

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^{20. Hermeto Lima, “Os Cafés do Rio,” in Antigos Cafés do Rio de Janeiro, by Danilo Gomes, 30–32, Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Kosmos Editora, 1989, 31.}

Café Criterium was on the corner right across the Teatro João Caetano. (Source: Augusto Malta, Praça Tiradentes in Brasiliana Fotográfica.)

Café do Braguinha was demolished and replaced by a more modern building, which Café Criterium occupied around the beginning of the 20th century. Many actors, presumably employed at the nearby theaters, visited the cafe.²¹

Praça Tiradentes (the former Praça de Constituição) was a hub of culture and entertainment, most especially from the 1870s to the 1930s. This area of the city was home to several show venues, including the Teatro João Caetano, the Teatro Carlos Gomes (known for coffee concerts), Alcazar Lyrique, and the Moulin Rouge. The square was alive even after 10:30 p.m.: while the shops were closed and the shows finished, restaurants, bars, cafés would be full. In his book O Rio de Janeiro do Meu Tempo, Luis Edmundo describes the vibrancy of Praça Tiradentes at night and mentions the excellent Café Criterium in 1901.²²

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^{21. Danilo Gomes, Antigos Cafés do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Kosmos Editora, 1989, 107-8.}

^{22. Márcia Pimentel, “Praça Tiradentes: Berço Da Vida Noturna Carioca,” MultiRio, November 30, 2017, http://multirio.rj.gov.br/index.php/reportagens/13288-pra%C3%A7a-tiradentes-o-ber%C3%A7o-da-vida-noturna-carioca-2.}

The Hotel Avenida was photographed by Marc Ferrez around 1912. (Source: Marc Ferrez, Hotel Avenida in Brasiliana Fotografica.)

Established in 1910 and demolished in 1957, the Hotel Avenida on Avenida Rio Branco (formerly Avenida Central) was an impressive, modern building with 220 guestrooms, 5 floors, and an elevator. On the ground floor, facing the Largo da Carioca and side streets, was the Galeria Cruzeiro, a shopping and dining center.²³

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^{23. Rio de Janeiro Aqui, “Rio Antigo - Hotel Avenida,” accessed December 13, 2021, https://www.riodejaneiroaqui.com/portugues/rio-antigo-h-avenida.html.}

The original Café de Belas Artes was established in the Galeria Cruzeiro at the beginning of the 20th century. As the name suggests, art had a special place in this café: paintings by esteemed artists like Batista da Costa, Elisei Visconti, Artur and João Timóteo da Costa, and Rodolfo and Carlos Chambelland hung on the walls. Café de Belas Artes drew artists, poets, writers, and journalists to sit on its benches and discuss art and literature.²⁴

Starting at 4:22, the above video from 1938 shows the Avenida Rio Branco (where the Galeria Cruzeiro was located) and the famous Rua do Ouvidor which intersected it (a few blocks north of Galeria Cruzeiro).

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^{24. Danilo Gomes, Antigos Cafés do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Kosmos Editora, 1989, 73.}

Alive from day to night, the narrow Rua do Ouvidor was like a little Europe. (Source: Marc Ferrez, Rua do Ouvidor in Brasiliana Fotografica.)

Particularly during the Belle Epoque, Cariocas experienced a taste of Europe on Rua do Ouvidor, which was a center of commercial, journalistic, and literary activity and the “heart of elite culture and society,” according to Jeffrey D. Needell. Rua do Ouvidor was the (nonexclusive) domain of Bohemians--generally, educated men and Francophiles--who spent a lot of time in the cafés and restaurants there. “These bohemians . . . roomed together, staffed the mass-circulation papers, and charged café and confeitaria life with a new energy. They lived out a fantasy of the Paris of which they all dreamed, within the thin, pulsating artery of Ouvidor.”

Poet Francisco de Paula Ney, whose “reputation was defined by Ouvidor,” would recite his poetry nowhere but at cafés. Writer and lawyer Ingles de Sousa “could be found browsing and chatting at Laemmert’s or Garnier’s bookstore during the late afternoon on the Rua de Ouvidor, when men of affairs, politicians, professionals and bureaucrats traditionally met and talked.”²⁵

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^{25. Jeffrey D. Needell, A Tropical Belle Epoque: Elite Culture and Society in Turn-of-the-Century Rio de Janeiro, Cambridge Latin American Studies 62, Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1987, 164, 189-90, 95.}

There appears to be a restaurant--perhaps a café--behind this kisok where the Primeiro de Março and Rua de Ouvidor met. (Source: Augusto Malta, Rua Primeiro de Março; na altura da Rua do Ouvidor in Brasiliana Fotográfica.)

In 1879 Herbert H. Smith wrote about the establishments and social atmosphere of the Rua do Ouvidor, which intersected the Rua Primeiro de Março (formerly Rua Direita):

“On the street-corners, there are gayly-painted and decorated, pagoda-like buildings — kiosques, they are called here. Groups of laborers are gathered about them ; they buy their coffee and lunch at the kiosques, and discuss the probabilities of lottery tickets that are exhibited in the windows ; invest their savings in the tickets very often. . . . Farther back from the bay are the retail shops ; the best of them on the fashionable Rua do Ouvidor which would be unfashionable enough in New York, for it is a mere narrow alley, like most of those in this part of the city. However, the shop-windows are very tastily arranged ; Brazilians understand this art thoroughly. There are coffee-rooms, opening to the street, and two or three picture galleries. . . . On the whole, the Ouvidor is lively and pleasant; of an evening it is brilliant, and the broadcloth-coated gentry come out in their glory. During carnival time, and periods of public rejoicing, the arches of gas-jets overhead are all lighted, and the street is crowded for half the night; people saunter indifferently on the sidewalks or in the roadway.”²⁶

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^{26. Herbert H. (Herbert Huntington) Smith, Brazil, the Amazons and the Coast, New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1879, http://archive.org/details/brazilamazonscoa00smit, 454-5.}

In the park, by the beach: Even the famous Passeio Publico had a café. (Source: Revert Henrique Klumb and Paul Théodore Robin, Jardin Public: le Café in Brasiliana Fotográfica.) The alfresco café by the Leme beach in southeast Rio was a favorite in the summertime. (Bell 49)

Coffee and cafés may have been imported concepts, but in Brazil they took on lives of their own. The cafés of Rio de Janeiro exemplify the significance of coffee--perhaps Brazil's most important product and beverage in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century--to its denizens. While international commerce drove the country's coffee production, that is not to say the bountiful harvest was destined solely for the port. Brazil was more than a Global South producer. Around the time that the coffee trade was booming, coffee-centered establishments shaped the urban fabric of the (former) capital, a city inspired by Europe in several ways. The specific manner of consumption cultivated by such establishments was part of the unique, larger national coffee culture. Cafés were ubiquitous spots for Cariocas to convene with fellow intellectuals, partake in academic discussions, appreciate art and culture, “see and be seen,” and enjoy homegrown coffee.

-Herbert H. Smith²⁷

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^{27. Herbert H. (Herbert Huntington) Smith, Brazil, the Amazons and the Coast, New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1879, http://archive.org/details/brazilamazonscoa00smit, 477.}

Bell, Alured Gray. The Beautiful Rio de Janeiro. London, W. Heinemann, 1914. http://archive.org/details/beautifulriodeja00bell.

Bennett, Frank. Forty Years in Brazil. London: Mills & Boon, limited, 1914. http://archive.org/details/fortyyearsinbraz00benn.

Brazil Commission, Universal Exhibition. The Empire of Brazil at the Universal Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia. Rui de Janeiro: Typ. e lithographia do Imperial instituto artistico, 1876.

Clarence-Smith, W. G., and Steven Topik. The Global Coffee Economy in Africa, Asia and Latin America, 1500-1989. Cambridge, UK; Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Gomes, Danilo. Antigos Cafés do Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Kosmos Editora, 1989.

Histórias, fotografias e significados das igrejas mais bonitas do Brasil. “Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Conceição e Boa Morte – Rio de Janeiro, RJ,” January 10, 2017. https://sanctuaria.art/2017/01/10/igreja-de-nossa-senhora-da-conceicao-e-boa-morte-rio-de-janeiro-rj/.

Karasch, Mary C. “Rio de Janeiro: A Colonial City until 1850.” Rice GIS. Accessed October 15, 2021. https://ricegis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=cb6d068b82494db4a2910720494d7c1d.

Laemmert, Eduardo von. Almanak Administrativo Mercantil e Industrial Da Corte e Provincia Do Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro: Eduardo and Henrique Laemmert, 1865. https://digital.bbm.usp.br/view/?45000009338&bbm/4304#page/628/mode/2up.

Laërne, C. F. Van Delden. Brazil and Java. Report on Coffee-Culture in America, Asia and Africa, to H. E. the Minister of the Colonies. London: W. H. Allen & C(o), 1885. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/U0113111486/MOME?sid=bookmark-MOME&xid=bb2c38c8&pg=4.

Lima, Hermeto. “Os Cafés do Rio.” In Antigos Cafés do Rio de Janeiro, by Danilo Gomes, 30–32. Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Kosmos Editora, 1989.

Needell, Jeffrey D. A Tropical Belle Epoque: Elite Culture and Society in Turn-of-the-Century Rio de Janeiro. Cambridge Latin American Studies 62. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Pimentel, Márcia. “Praça Tiradentes: Berço Da Vida Noturna Carioca.” MultiRio, November 30, 2017. http://multirio.rj.gov.br/index.php/reportagens/13288-pra%C3%A7a-tiradentes-o-ber%C3%A7o-da-vida-noturna-carioca-2.

Rio de Janeiro Aqui. “Rio Antigo - Hotel Avenida.” Accessed December 13, 2021. https://www.riodejaneiroaqui.com/portugues/rio-antigo-h-avenida.html.

Smith, Herbert H. (Herbert Huntington). Brazil, the Amazons and the Coast. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1879. http://archive.org/details/brazilamazonscoa00smit.

Ukers, William H. All About Coffee. New York: The Tea and Coffee Trade Journal Company, 1922. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28500/28500-h/28500-h.htm#Sidewalk_Cafe_Lisbon.

Thanks to Alida Metcalf, Fares El-Dahdah, Deborah Fontenelle, and Bruno Buccalon Caruso for their guidance and assistance in producing this Narrativa. --Nicole Lhuillier