The route of the clippers that import coffee
On November 7, 2021, the 82 duos of the Transat Jacques Vabre will set sail from Le Havre towards Brazil. They will follow the same itinerary as the ships of the 18th and 19th centuries that transported coffee from Brazil to the port of Le Havre, the first European coffee port in the 18th century. Certainly in the opposite direction.
The first coffee beans were unloaded in Normandy in 1728, by clippers bringing back to France products from the colonies: coffee, cocoa, cotton... These three-masted ships, characteristic of the 19th and early 20th centuries, were used to transport perishable goods as quickly as possible, thanks to their imposing sails and tapered hull. On each voyage, 400 tons of coffee were brought to Le Havre from the Brazilian coast. Baptized "The Swallows of Rio", they were built in Le Havre.
Le Havre, the largest importer of European coffee
At the time, and since 1815, le Havre is the largest coffee importing port in Europe, in terms of storage and distribution. At the end of the 19th century, up to 780,000 bags of coffee were unloaded each year. At the beginning of the 20th century, the city of Normandy became the most important stock of coffee with 100,000 tons of imported coffee.
The coffee imported from Brazil was then sorted in warehouses by hundreds of sorting machines, which removed the broken or unfit for use hulls.
A local fortune
Quickly, the local coffee merchants make fortune and acquire a certain social recognition, enjoying a certain power in Le Havre. Numerous coffee houses were created, such as Jobin & Compagnie, in 1871.
At the end of the 1970s, there were about forty coffee houses in Le Havre, while today, only Jobin & Compagnie remains. Nevertheless, Le Havre continues to import coffee, always from Brazil, first world producer, but also from Africa and more recently from Asia.
Le Havre, rival of New York
But Le Havre does not only import coffee. The city has the most important international stock exchange in Europe and rivals New York. Every day, transactions fix the world prices of the various coffee varieties.
War and coffee
In 1944, after the allied bombing which lasted 6 days, 3 500 civilians were killed and the city center was completely destroyed. The coffee merchants who fled the city during the exodus never came back and Le Havre lost its superbness. If coffee no longer occupies the preponderant place of former days, the closing of the market in 1944 supports the closing of the coffee houses. Nevertheless, Le Havre remains the first French coffee port.
