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Ainda importamos o café que eles cultivam.

Ainda importamos o café que eles cultivam.
We still import the coffee that they cultivate.
From Lesson 399:The relative pronoun for origins (donde)·Portuguese (Portugal)

Questions & Answers about Ainda importamos o café que eles cultivam.

This lesson is about "donde", but this sentence uses "que". Why couldn't we use "donde" here?
The pronoun que (that) replaces the direct object o café. We only use donde (a contraction of de + onde) when referring to an origin or location ("from where"). If we were talking about the location rather than the coffee itself, we would use it: A quinta donde importamos o café (The farm from where we import the coffee).
Could we use the verb "crescer" instead of "cultivam" for growing coffee?
No, crescer is an intransitive verb meaning "to grow" in the sense of getting naturally bigger (like a child or a tree growing). When a person is actively agricultural growing or raising crops, you must use verbs like cultivar or plantar.
Why is "ainda" placed before the verb rather than at the end of the sentence?
The adverb ainda (still) almost always immediately precedes the verb it modifies, which in this case is importamos. While English allows "still" in a few different positions, placing ainda at the end of this Portuguese sentence would sound very unnatural.
Since Portuguese usually drops subject pronouns, why is "eles" included here?
While you can absolutely say ...o café que cultivam, including eles adds clarity or contrast. The third-person plural verb ending -am can mean "they" or "you all" (vocês). Keeping eles completely removes any ambiguity about who is doing the farming.

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