An extract:

“Here is the tale of Don (de Melo Palheta) Francisco, sent by the Emperor of Brazil to steal coffee seeds from French Guyana in 1727. The French were guarding their coffee jealously, but Don Francisco was equal to the task.

Suave, charming and handsome, he made a great impression on the French Governor’s wife, and upon leaving she presented him with a bouquet of flowers, in which were concealed the seedlings he desired.

As a result of this affair, the forerunners of the world’s biggest coffee plantations were founded in Brazil.”

Our splended picture shows a Brazilian coffee plantation, painted in 1935 by Brazilian neo-realist artist Candido Portinari.