Coffee Commodity Chain

Legend has it that coffee beans were discovered when a goat-herder noticed that his herd had become especially energetic after eating some berries in 850 A.D.

He then took the berries to a local monastery so the monks could see the miraculous discovery, but they threw them in the fire, causing the aroma of roasting coffee to fill the monastery. The monks then poured water over the beans to preserve them, creating brewed coffee.

Interestingly, when coffee was first introduced into both Europe and the New World, it was not widely accepted. Only after papal approval in Italy did coffee catch on and coffee houses start to spring up. The same situation occurred after the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act and started taxing tea in what would become the United States.

Although the video above mentions Martinique as the destination of the first coffee tree sapling in America, the island of Saint-Domingue was the first place in the new world to be a major coffee cultivation center.

Coffee was introduced to the New World through the Colombian exchange, which was "the exchange of diseases, ideas, food crops, and populations between the New World and the Old World following the voyage to the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492" (Nunn and Qian 163).

Once coffee became a popular drink in the United States, it became imperative that it was cheap and easy to import, as importing coffee from Arabia was much too expensive for many people to afford. Therefore, Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) became a major producer of coffee during the 1700s and at one point was producing half of the world's coffee.

Coffee was cultivated and produced by using slave labor. Once slave revolts started and the Haitian Revolution began in the late 1700s and early 1800s, coffee production never regained its prominence on the island.

Coffee first came to Brazil in the early 18th century when, in 1727, lieutenant colonel Francisco de Mello Palheta was commissioned by Portugal to steal a coffee plant from French Guiana, a nearby territory under French control at the time.

This story, while maybe not completely factual, provides another layer to the elusive history of coffee. Either way, the coffee cultivation started in the state Pará after coffee was brought to Brazil.

This is an important step in this commodity chain because coffee came to Brazil by way of French Guiana.

This map shows the "coffee belt" - the places around the world that are conducive to growing coffee. As you can see, Ethiopia, the Caribbean, French Guiana, and Brazil are all within the coffee belt.

Brazil is one of the few places in Latin America that produce both Arabica and Robusta species of coffee. Arabica coffee is higher quality and primarily grown in Latin America, and Robusta coffee is primarily grown in the Eastern Hemisphere.

The map to the right shows the different places around Brazil where coffee is grown, with Chapada de Minas being represented by #3 on the map.

As far as the actual cultivation of the coffee fruit goes, here are the steps:

• "In its most basic, unprocessed form, coffee is a cherry-like fruit, which becomes red when ripe; the coffee bean is found at the center of the red coffee fruit."
• In most countries, the crop is picked by hand in a labor-intensive and difficult process, though in places like Brazil where the landscape is relatively flat and the coffee fields immense, the process has been mechanized. 
• The crop is either strip or selectively picked
• Strip picking: All fruit is stripped from the tree at one time, no matter the ripeness.
• Selective picking: Only ripe cherries are picked by hand and harvested every 8-10 days. This method is used primarily to harvest the finer Arabica beans because this kind of harvest is labor intensive and more costly.

The beans are also partially processed right on site:

• Brazil processes its coffee via the dry (natural), wet (washed), and semi-washed (pulped natural) methods.
• The vast majority of Brazil coffee beans are still processed via the dry method.
• Dry Process: Dry-processed (Naturally processed) coffees are dried while they are still in the cherry...This coffee is also one of the most complex to deal with do to the long drying times and possibility of fermentation. However, since dry-processed coffees are more difficult, Brazil has invested significant time and money to developing new drying systems and drying practices.
• This step in processing is a big contributor to the overall flavor of the coffee and is a large reason why coffee taste can vary from one growing region to another.

The coffee bean is then removed from the fruit and then shipped to roasting plants and distribution centers.

Climate change poses a major threat to the future of coffee consumption.

hotter weather and changes in rainfall patterns are projected to cut the area suitable for coffee in half by 2050."

As temperatures warm and precipitation patterns become more variable, coffee cultivation will become far more difficult. Many farmers are having to move crops to higher altitudes to maintain current growing conditions, resulting in less land to cultivate the crop on.

There are farmers who are already seeing the effects of this and have had to adjust their practices or shut down.

We meet another coffee farm owner, Eliezer Jacob. He tells me his irrigation pond is at only 10 percent of capacity. Coffee is too difficult to maintain, he says, because it needs too much water. So he has been diversifying his crops to make ends meet.

The map to the right highlights the different ways that climate change will affect coffee growing regions around the world, including Brazil.

I chose to highlight Starbucks's processing and distribution chain because it is a multinational company that provides information about their system. I also drink a lot of Starbucks coffee, so it is nice to know how the beans are roasted and distributed.

These two plants roast millions of pound of coffee each week, with the York plant roasting 3 million pounds alone.

The Starbucks website explains the roasting process:

1. Green coffee beans are heated in a large rotating drum, then their transformation begins. After about 5 to 7 minutes of intense heat, much of their moisture evaporates.
2. The beans turn a yellow color and smell a little like popcorn. After about 8 minutes in the roaster, the “first pop” occurs. The beans double in size, crackling as they expand. They are now light brown.
3. After 10-11 minutes in the roaster, the beans reach an even brown color, and oil starts to appear on the surface of the bean. At this roasting time (different for each coffee, but usually somewhere between 11 and 15 minutes), the full flavor potential begins to develop in the beans, bringing all of their attributes into balance.
4. The “second pop” signals that the coffee is almost ready.

Coffee beans are shipped around the world at all stages of commodity chain, but the distribution stage is where they are shipped to their final destination.

The US and Italy both import the most coffee from Brazil, with 25% of the US's imports coming from Brazil and 35% of Italy's.

The Carson Valley plant primarily distributes domestically around the U.S., while the York Valley plant distributes to the East Coast of the U.S. and internationally, like to Italy.

According to the Starbucks website, "from the port of entry, the "green" (unroasted) beans are trucked to six storage sites, either at a roasting plant or nearby. After the beans are roasted and packaged, the finished product is trucked to regional distribution centers, which range from 200,000 to 300,000 square feet in size."

Beans are shipped by truck and plane all over the world until it gets to your morning cup.