Category Archives: Coffee

Pardon Our Dust

It’s been a wild ride since 2020. It was rough on our coffee business, but we did manage to buy a small cocoa farm in 2021. That pushed us into the wonderful world of craft chocolate.

A WordPress update wiped out the custom website, and the young programmer is nowhere to be found.

I’ve returned to a simpler format, but the site will likely be a mess until I can see what is salvageable.

Thanks for stopping by!

World coffee production forecast down 11 million bags: USDA Coffee World Markets and Trade report – Global Coffee Report

World coffee production for 2021/22 is forecast down 11 million bags from the previous year to 164.8 million, according to the United States Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA FAS) Coffee: World Markets and Trade June 2021 report.

USDA FAS says this is due primarily to Brazil’s combined effect of Arabica trees entering the off‐year of the biennial production cycle and a weather‐related shortfall. As a result of lower output, USDA FAS expects global ending inventories are expected to drop 7.9 million bags to 32 million.

It expects world coffee bean exports to be down 4.8 million bags to 115.5 million. World coffee production for 2020/21 is revised up 300,000 bags from the Coffee: World Markets and Trade December 2020 estimate to 175.8 million.

Brazil is up two million bags to 69.9 million, largely due to updated data for Arabica output. Uganda is revised 1.2 million bags higher to six million largely due to increased area. Peru is lowered 1.1 million bags to 3.4 million on updated area and yield data. Cote d’Ivoire is reduced 700,000 bags to 1.1 million on lower yields. USDA FAS has raised world bean exports 2.8 million bags to 120.3 million.

Source: World coffee production forecast down 11 million bags: USDA Coffee World Markets and Trade report – Global Coffee Report

An Aromatic Electric Guitar Made Out of Coffee Beans

A rather caffeinated Burl of Burls Art decided to build for himself a guitar made out of 5,000 coffee beans. As with his other builds, Burl encased the beans in resin, carefully cut out the body of the guitar, connected the neck, and inserted the electronics. He also created a gorgeous headstock veneer out of copper sheeting and gave the guitar a warm, copper color that matched the beans. Additionally, the guitar itself has the aroma of coffee.

As far as the guitar goes I think it came out looking pretty awesome. The shape is like a modified Explorer.

One thing I’m sure a lot of you are wondering is why I didn’t flood coat the top and bottom of the guitar to give it a perfect finish. I gave it some consideration but it’s not every day that I build a guitar that smells this good if you’re within like 10 feet of this guitar you can smell it.

It was also kind of nice just building it because the shop smelled like coffee all the time. I wanted to keep that aspect of this guitar.

Source: An Aromatic Electric Guitar Made Out of Coffee Beans

In Spite of Pandemic Coffee Still Plentiful

Coffee lovers, here’s something to be grateful about. Unlike paper towels, disinfectant or yeast, coffee has never been hard to find during the pandemic.

It has remained widely available on supermarket shelves even though COVID-19 has been particularly bad in some of the world’s largest coffee growing nations. Brazil, which has recorded more cases than any nation other than the United States, is the world’s top producer of coffee. India, Mexico and Colombia all rank in the top ten globally for both COVID cases and coffee production. Other major coffee exporters including Peru and Uganda have found themselves cut off by border closures and lockdowns.

“It’s natural to think that the harvesting of the coffee crops may be disrupted or perhaps badly disrupted,” says Steven Hurst, a coffee trader based in London. “But quite honestly and quite frankly, we’ve seen relatively little, if any, evidence of that.”

Source: Many major coffee producing nations also have large COVID outbreaks : NPR

For Peru, there are no international flights, and many coffee regions only recently began to have domestic air service. Lockdowns have been very strict, yet cases have been some of the highest in the world. The bigger exporters & Cooperatives with previous contracts have been doing well, but the small farmers that have no long term commitments are suffering.

For us, it meant no trip to Peru this summer, and uncertainty as to when we’ll be able to return.

Selective Picking for Only Ripe Cherries