Poor Farmer

"Like virtually all Ethiopia coffees, this striking and unusual coffee is produced by villagers on small, garden plots interplanted with food and other subsistence crops.” - The respected industry Author Kenneth Davids’ website, CoffeeReview.com ------------- Press Release Minneapolis, MN Paradise Roasters June 06, 2007 Paradise Roasters, one of the most highly rated and awarded micro-roasters of coffee in America, has just garnered the highest rating ever achieved for a coffee rated by Kenneth Davids. In judging Paradise Roasters’ release of Ethiopian Biloya Special, Mr. Davids assigned it a rating of 97 points, his highest rating to date. Kenneth Davids, coffee expert, author, and co-founder of The Coffee Review, began his involvement with coffee in the early 1970s, when he opened a coffee business in Berkeley, California. Since then he published three books on coffee and has rated and reviewed thousands of different coffees. This is from Mr. Davids’ review of Paradise Roaster ...

The franchise that popularised a coffee culture in the US, is now being accused of bastardising an age old tradition. Chris Buchanan Money Web June 06, 2007 Premium coffee culture, that of the espresso, cappuccino, latté, macchiato and ristretto evolved in Europe through the invention of the piston driven espresso machine by Achille Gaggia in 1948. Until then coffee was savoured as a percolated or filtered brew in Europe and the US, and a boiled brew in the Arabic world where it is said to have been popularised in the 10th century. In 1971 Starbucks opened it first coffee house in Seattle, but it wasn't until Howard Shultz joined the company in 1981 that the right formula was achieved after intense scrutiny of the European espresso bar culture. What followed was a cult-like coffee explosion in the states. In 1990 the US overtook Germany as the biggest single importer of coffee and today imports double that of second place Germany. At fiscal year end 2006 Starbucks had 12440 stores ...

The following news article reports, “Ethiopia has just resolved a dispute with the US-based Starbucks coffee chain over trademarks after the two sides agreed in principle to sign a licensing and marketing deal which recognises the country’s ownership of its premium varieties of coffee beans.” It should be noted, however, that the two sides have not signed the agreement to date. According to the recent joint statement issued on May 3, 2007 by the Ethiopian government and Starbucks, they were supposed to sign the licensing agreement before the end of May, 2007. It is understandable that negotiations of any sort sometimes take longer time than estimated, but whenever that happens, it is important that the parties acknowledge the delay and provide explanations for missed deadlines. As a good service to the public, I think the government and Starbucks officials should issue an official notice with a renewed target date for the expected resolution of their differences. On the other hand, it ...

By Carlos Caminada Bloomberg June 1, 2007 Brazil, the world's biggest coffee producer, will give arabica growers a subsidy of as much as 40 reais ($21) a bag after a rally in the local currency eroded export profits. The government will guarantee that growers receive 300 reais per 60-kilogram bag of arabica coffee, the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement. Brazil will hold auctions twice a month between growers and buyers and plans to subsidize as many as 5 million bags through the end of the harvest in October. Brazil's offer to support prices, its first since 2002, comes one day after Colombia, the world's second-biggest arabica producer, said it would aid farmers to counter a currency rally. Colombia's peso and Brazil's real are the world's best- performing currencies against the dollar in the past six months. ``Producer profits are really narrow because of the exchange rate,'' said Joao Antonio Lian, head of Sumatra Cafes Brasil, Brazil's thi...

ABC News Online May 31, 2007 A coffee grower from Mareeba, in far north Queensland, says she has secured the rights to bring the first naturally caffeine-free coffee trees to Australia. Currently caffeine has to be removed from coffee beans through a chemical process which affects the taste of the finished product. Linda Jacques has just returned from Brazil where she met the scientists who discovered caffeine-free plants in Ethiopia. She says she will be the first to bring the variety to Australia once it is cross-bred with a higher yielding strain and she is sure there will be a market. "There is a growing demand ... about 10 per cent of the world's coffee production ... they are using decaffeinated coffee at the moment," she said. ---------- Past news item on the discovery ---------- Naturally decaffeinated coffee plant discovered NewScientist.com news service Andy Coghlan June 23, 2004 A naturally decaffeinated coffee plant has been discovered. Coffee from the new str...

By Chris Mercer Beverage Daily May 29, 2007 Coffee processors and producers will have to wait another year for a new International Coffee Agreement after talks over the last week failed to make a breakthrough. Arguments and a lack of common ground between delegates from several countries are understood to have blighted discussions at the International Coffee Organisation (ICO) headquarters in London. It means the current Agreement will be extended for another year, putting back potentially important reforms that could help the coffee sector to address issues of sustainability, trade and emerging market consumption. An EU official told BeverageDaily.com in February that the end of May deadline for agreeing a new deal looked "too optimistic". Nestor Osorio, ICO executive director, had repeatedly insisted that talks were on track to replace the current agreement, which should have run out in September. On Friday, he admitted defeat. ICO members, which include the EU, US and m...

The negotiation between Starbucks and Ethiopia’s attorneys is continuing though at a slower pace. Starbucks is represented by its external lawyers – not by the company’s in house consul. That, in part, explains the reasons for their feet dragging, I think. Not many details are available from either side at the moment. It seems as though confidentiality is one of the preconditions for the negotiation. From the information I was able to gather, however, the outcome of the negotiation might be something different from what has been at the center of the public dispute. The two sides are apparently playing a give-take game. Starbucks is willing to recognize Ethiopia’s common Trade Mark rights but does not want to support its rights to administrative Trademark rights. Meaning, the company would not support Ethiopia’s application at the United States Patent and Trademark Office to register the marks, Harar, Sidamo, and Yirgacheffe. It looks like Ethiopia’s side is prepared to accept that comp...