Robert S. Beers, Gleaner Writer
IN THE 1940s, coffee in the United States was called "joe," or "java" and men in fedoras slid into café booths and paid five cents for a cup.
By the 1990s, the names had changed to a "latte," or a "cappuccino," and so had the price, to around US$3.50 a cup.
Today's era of speciality coffees turned the industry around from being about beans to being about a "beverage."
Jamaican coffee, considered among the world's best and at the top of the high-end coffee market, was perfectly positioned for this era where frothy, expensive chains like America's Starbucks and Canada's Second Cup Canada thrived. The world of coffee, like many worlds, changed dramatically on September 11.
The New York Coffee Exchange, the largest in the western hemisphere, located in the World Trade Center, was lost, along with other global marketplaces with headquarters formerly in the WTC.
The Coffee Exchange got back into business on a limited basis in temporary headquarters in Long Island City a few days after the attacks.
Coffee market
The destruction of the exchange came in the middle of an on-going collapse of the coffee market itself. For several years the price of raw coffee has been in free-fall. In 1997, coffee hit a high of US$3 a pound, recently it dropped below 50 cents a pound. There is simply too much coffee available on the market.
The weather in South America has been ideal for some time; neither floods nor frost has diminished recent harvests. Brazil, the biggest producer in the world, is expecting a bumper crop this year. Vietnam is entering the global market in a big way. Once a small producer, it is now expected to have a harvest equal to about one-quarter of Brazil's record crop this year. India is committed to becoming a leading coffee producing nation.
In an often-cyclical coffee market, these are times of pronounced oversupply, which means decreasing prices for the growers. Lower prices for growers, however, has not meant a big reduction in prices at the grocery store or coffee shop. On the shop shelf, prices have dropped only slightly. Meanwhile in "latte-land," prices are actually increasing at upscale coffee shops in the last couple of years.
"The customer pays for the rent and ambience, all the overstuffed chairs cost more than the coffee," said Grace Bush of Atlanta's Coffee Lounge.
Jamaica Blue Mountain is a ten-karat coffee. Prices sampled in Miami and Toronto run up to US$30 or more a pound. Jamaican coffee does not trade on any exchange, sets the price on supply and demand, and with a small volume demand always exceeds supply.
Distinctive
Jamaica's Coffee Industry Board says the nation's famous brew is distinctive because of 'appearance' (big, bold, bluish green beans) and taste aromatic, mild acidity, clean (no extraneous taste or smell), sweetish and good body.
Coffee of this price and quality has few competitors, making it a niche brand that goes head-to-head with only Kona from Hawaii, Emerald Mountain from Columbia, and Africa's Kenya AA.
Perhaps the biggest secret about Jamaican coffee is where most of it is sold. It is gulped up in a tea-drinking land where premium products are prized, and things associated with the leisure class' are always en vogue. It is in Japan where 85 per cent of Jamaica's coffee finds a home.
"Jamaica coffee has developed a very attractive niche market in Japan, starting about 50 years ago and continuing today,"said Chief Executive Officer of the Jamaica Coffee Industry Board's Commercial Division, Gonzalo Hernandez.
It was in the late 1940s, when U.S. soldiers were stationed throughout occupied Japan that coffee drinking became a fad among the Japanese. "American blend" was the Japanese name for the weak tasting cup favoured by those from the States, quite bland to a nation known to prefer flavour and spice.
Export
Some Japanese visitors to Jamaica first discovered the island's distinct coffee. They took it back home and importers began to ship to Japan all the " Blue Mountain" they could acquire. Before the Japanese discovery of Jamaican coffee, it went primarily to the United Kingdom and Canada. Today, 10 per cent of this Cadillac of coffees ends up in the U.S., only five per cent of it makes it to Europe or CARICOM countries.
All this means Jamaicans can enjoy one of the world's most expensive items and one of the world's best bargains. That two- ounce jar of Mountain Peak instant that goes $120, would set you back three or four times that much in North America.
Jamaica coffee served in Jamaica, by world prices, is one of the greatest deals in the world.
