Too Much Coffee From Brazil

Green coffee prices are at a 12 year low, following a bumper crop year for Brazil, which is of course the world's biggest coffee producer. The flow-on effect of this is severe problems for the other coffee producing countries around the world. In simple terms, coffee farmers outside Brazil are producing at a loss.

The reason Brazilian farmers can produce so much at such a low cost is their high level of automation. Their plantations are designed for mechanical processing from the subsoil up. Irrigation, soil conditioning and crop spacing are all in place before a tree is planted, and this whole approach flows through to cultivation, picking, processing and shipping.

The 25,000,000 coffee farmers outside Brazil are mostly smallholders, with a few hectares of crop. They are more or less at the mercy of the commodity coffee market. Which is another problem in itself. ALL of the "glut" of coffee is commodity coffee, low to medium quality beans with cupping scores between 70 to 80 points. This market is at the mercy of Futures Traders operating on the New York Board of Trade, speculators who determine world prices without ever touching a green bean.

A small farmer with a crop that is predominantly commodity coffee may choose to just stop growing coffee and convert to another crop, or walk off the farm altogether. Throw in the effects of climate change on crop yields and the extra expenses for fungicides, pesticides and fertilizers and it's a wonder how many persist.

Farmers who have had the intelligence and resources to enter the specialty coffee market are generally doing much better. Outside of Brazil specialty prices have trended upwards rather than falling, as more roasters try to make an impact with better qualiyy coffees. Coffees at the high end of the specialty range, 85 points and up, are getting both more expensive and harder to find as competition for them increases.

Happily for us the lower prices inside Brazil have spread to some of the specialty coffees produced outside the mechanised system. Getting hold of the very best Brazilian coffees is normally an expensive proposition, not least because of the Cup of Excellence auctions pushing up the prices. This month's special is a mutant typica bean first identified in the late 19th century. Its mutant super powers include a particular smooth, rich favour profile, and a super large size. It is, of course

Brazil Maragogype
$66.00/kg

My tasting notes read: "Baking cake aroma, absolutely smooth, full bodied flavour with low to medium acidity, clean, sweet finish."

Maragogype coffee was first discovered near the town of the same name in the Bahia region of Brazil, and that is where this coffee comes from. I've been aware of it for over 30 years but have never been able to get hold of any, until now. After the discovery the varietal was cultivated in Colombia, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Mexico, but with the coffee rust epidemic in 2014 all those sources appear to gone.

This is in fact the first time I've been able to buy a decent Maragogype at any price since early 2015, and once the current price drop is over, I doubt I'll see it again.

Until next month

Alan