Brazil International Coffee Week is Online and Free Nov. 18-20

Semana Internacional do Café image.

As the world’s largest coffee-producing country for more than a century and the world’s second-largest coffee consumer by total volume, Brazil also happens to host one of the largest professional coffee gatherings in the world, the Semana Internacional do Café (SIC), a.k.a. the Brazil International Coffee Week.

Unfortunately, as the COVID-19 pandemic has carried on through Brazil’s annual coffee harvest season, this year’s Brazil International Coffee Week will take place entirely online, from Nov. 18-20.

The good news is it’s free to attend, and some of the world’s most prominent coffee authorities will be sharing their insights on a broad range of topics throughout the sector, such as beverage and market trends, sustainability, agribusiness, roasting and retail entrepreneurship, post-harvest processing innovation, and so much more.

From an International Women’s Coffee Alliance session at the 2019 Semana Internacional do Café. SIC photo.

On sheer volume alone, what affects the Brazilian coffee sector affects the entire world of coffee. By most estimates, Brazil will have produced more than 60 million bags of green coffee this crop year, including approximately 47 million bags of arabica.

“The world has been consuming differentiated coffees for a long time and the sector continues to grow in Brazil,” Breno Mesquita, vice president of the Federation of Agriculture and Livestock of the State of Minas Gerais (FAEMG) and president of the State and National Coffee Commissions, said in a press announcement of the event. “Thanks to the producers’ competence combined with production techniques, we are one of the few countries able to fill the market demands with quantity and quality.”

Held since 2013 in the city of Belo Horizonte, the show focuses on the Brazilian market development and the dissemination of Brazilian coffee’s quality to domestic consumers and buyer countries, in addition to enhance social and economic results of the sector. Due to the pandemic, the 2020 edition will happen online.

Led by numerous parties in the country’s largest coffee-producing state, Minas Gerais, the event has taken place in the state capital Belo Horizonte since 2013. The speaker lineup this year includes a mix of Brazilian and international speakers, and translations to English will be available. The event will also include the annual Coffee of the Year awards, which highlight different types of coffees from throughout Brazil.

Registration information and a complete schedule for the 2020 Brazil International Coffee Week are available here.