Planning the trip to Brazil

Well, as I said before the show went very well. There was a coffee retailer from Florida that had never been to a coffee farm, and asked if we could take him on  a tour of Brazilian Coffee Etates. We were happy to do it so we started to plan the trip for late June.  They would fly from Miami to Rio De Janeiro, we would pick them up and drive to Petropolis where Sao Joao Estate is.  We would then visit some farms in the region and then go to Sao Paulo; visit some farms in Sao Paulo and then go to Minas Gerais,( Pocos de Caldas )for some more visits.  I was continuing my education about coffee with books and DVD all over my home.  Started to visit local stores and taste different coffees. Visiting so many stores  I found out that there was no Brazilian Gourmet Coffee in New York City.  One could find a Cerrado, may be, but that was all.  I could not believe after all I learned about Brazilian Gourmet Coffee that the better stores in New York did not offer it to its customers. There was Colombian,   Guatemalan,  Ethiopian, Bolivian but no Brazilian.  I then learned that Brazil was known as a base of blends robusta coffee and when the old Brazilian Coffee Institute was extinguished no investment from the government were made in advertising our coffee. As opposed to us, Colombia spent more than 10 million dollars with the Juan Valdez campaign.  Even Illy coffee is mostly Brazilian Coffee, but everyone thinks it is Italian! Italy does not produce any coffee.  Robusta is a cheap coffee, that some people compare to Chicory. It is very strong and combined with a better coffee will produce what you know as Folgers, Maxwell House etc.