The first coffee bush in Brazil was planted by Francisco de Melo Palheta in Pará in 1727. According to the legend, the Portuguese were looking for a cut of the coffee market, but could not obtain seeds from bordering French Guiana due to the governor's unwillingness to export the seeds. Palheta was sent to French Guiana on a diplomatic mission to resolve a border dispute. On his way back home, he managed to smuggle the seeds into Brazil by seducing the governor's wife who secretly gave him a bouquet spiked with seeds.

Coffee spread from Pará and reached Rio de Janeiro in 1770, but was only produced for domestic consumption until the early 19th century when American and European demand increased, creating the first of two coffee booms. The cycle ran from the 1830s to 1850s, contributing to the decline of slavery and increased industrialization. Coffee plantations in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Minas Gerais quickly grew in size in the 1820s, accounting for 20% of worlds production. By the 1830s, coffee had become Brazil's largest export and accounted for 30% of the world's production. In the 1840s, both the share of total exports and of world production reached 40%, making Brazil the largest coffee producer. The early coffee industry was dependent on slaves; in the first half of the 19th century 1.5 million slaves were imported to work on the plantations. When the foreign slave trade was outlawed in 1850, plantation owners began turning more and more to European immigrants to meet the demand of labor.