Coffee on the Amazon
I'm in the middle of Pará state, about three hours from the large city of Belém on a dirt road three hours from a small village called Tomé Açu.
Tomé Açu was one of several Japanese farming colonies in the state that started with the arrival of 43 Japanese families in 1929. This farming community would emerge successfully through the cultivation of pepper. The fortunes of the community would also decline as the pepper plant fell victim to a fungus that destroyed the crops.
This three-hour midway point between Belém and Tomé Açu is the break in an arduous overland …