When Brazil tried to pay for the Olympics with coffee
The year was 1932.
The world was still reeling from the effects of the Great Depression, triggered by the 1929 Wall Street crash. In Brazil, the crisis hit the coffee economy hard — coffee was the country’s main export. As prices plummeted, President Getúlio Vargas's government took drastic action: it bought and burned 18 million bags of coffee stored in the port of Santos, hoping to stabilize the market.
But 1932 was also an Olympic year — and despite the global recession, Brazil was determined to compete.
A ship, 82 athletes, and 55,000 bags of coffee
With no money to fund the trip to Los Angeles, the Brazilian government loaded 82 athletes onto a ship called Itaquicê, along with 270 other passengers (coaches, soldiers, and even tourists), two cannons (to disguise the vessel as military and avoid paying the Panama Canal fee), and 55,000 bags of coffee.
The idea? Sell the coffee at each stop along the way to cover travel expenses. But things didn’t go as planned. At the first stop, Port of Spain (Trinidad), not a single bag was sold. The island’s population was too small and poor to buy. Worse — the ship reached the Panama Canal still full of coffee, and the disguise failed. Officials weren’t fooled by the cannons. The crew had to wait four days for emergency funds to be wired from Brazil.
No sales, no money, time to improvise
After a month at sea, Itaquicê finally docked in Los Angeles. But there still wasn’t enough money for everyone to disembark. A $1 fee per person was required. Only 67 of the 82 athletes left the ship — those with the best shot at medals. The rest were forced to stay aboard and continue to the next port, San Francisco.
The barefoot runner who wouldn’t give up
Among them was long-distance runner Adalberto Cardoso. Refusing to be left out, he snuck off the ship in San Francisco and traveled more than 600 kilometers to Los Angeles — mostly on foot and hitchhiking. He arrived at the Olympic Stadium just ten minutes before his race.
He had no time to put on shoes, ran barefoot, fell three times, and finished last in the 10,000-meter race. But the crowd, having heard his story during the competition, gave him a standing ovation.
The 1932 Olympic journey is one of the most remarkable storys in Brazil’s sporting and coffee history. It shows how coffee fueled resilience, dreams, and determination. Today, when we talk about specialty coffee, we also celebrate stories like this: bold, human, and unforgettable.
