Poor Farmer

The Increasing Sophistication of Coffee Drinkers is Good for Producers From The Economist print edition April 17, 2008 ADDIS ABABA COFFEE prices are the highest they have been for a decade. As consumers in India and China develop a taste for the drink, prices are likely to keep rising. Meanwhile something new is happening in developed markets. Europeans, Americans and Japanese are switching to higher-quality coffee. Discerning consumers now demand authenticity: they want stories about where their coffee beans come from. So the best coffees will increasingly be differentiated, like fine wines and spirits, and sold at previously unthinkable prices. The move from instant-coffee powder to luxury beans is in some ways reminiscent of what happened when the Scotch-whisky industry shifted from cheap blends to expensive single malts, each with its own story. But where the whisky revolution was masterminded by distillers, the coffee revolution is a messier insurgency. Gourmets and specialist ...

Fog rolls over the hills in Yirgacheffe on Dec. 7, 2007. Photographer: Michael Tsegaye/ Bloomberg News By Marianne Stigset Bloomberg April 17, 2008 Wearing a gray jacket and white cap to ward off the early morning chill, Bedhane Gambarso plucks ripe, red coffee berries from the trees on his 1.5-hectare (3.7- acre) farm in the hills of Ethiopia's Yirgacheffe region. Gambarso, a 44-year-old former soldier, earned 4,000 birr ($421) last year from his crop, which had to support his wife and eight children until the next harvest. At night, the family shares its one-room hut with two cows and three sheep. Ethiopia, where coffee originated, is trying to boost the incomes of farmers like Gambarso by trademarking its beans, prized for their rich, fruity flavor. Producing nations such as Colombia have followed suit as growers struggle to grab more of the $25 billion consumers spend on premium varieties each year. Success may mean higher prices for lattes and cut profits for companies such ...