Brazil and Colombia are optimal for production of coffee; we can offer you the excellent coffee for your needs due to our relationship network in both these countries. Please contact us, we offer you the best price for the best quality.
In value terms, coffee is the most important raw material after crude oil and is the most consummated beverage in the world after water.
The coffee plant (lat. coffea) belongs to the madder (Rubiaceae) family. It grows in tropical regions around the equator and requires excessive rainfall and temperatures above 21°C all year round. The fruits of the coffee tree, the coffee beans, are the most important farm product in the global north-south trade and reminds in the form and colour of cherries. Annually 1 to 1.5 pound of roasted coffee is produced from the harvest of a coffee tree.
Coffee was discovered in Ethiopia, in the Kaffa region, in the 9th century. In the 14 th century this beverage reached Arabia with slave traders, and spread out more and more from there. At that time Arabia had a kind of monopoly while trading. The city of Mocha (called "Mokka"), which is located in present-day Yemen, was at the heart of the trade. The first coffeehouse was opened in London in the 17th century. It was called "Penny University", because of the price for a cup. One of those coffeehouses was the birth place of London Stock Exchange.
The four coffee sorts were differentiated: Arabica, Robusta, Liberica and Excelsa. The last two sorts are rather irrelevant, the Arabica, however, accounts for around 60% of the world production. The most important growing countries for this sort are Brazil and Colombia. The other large producers are Costa Rica, Mexico and Guatemala. The plantations are situated at heights of between 600 to 2000 meters above sea level. The Robusta has a stronger taste and is less demanding, it also grows in lower-lying areas from 200 to 600 meters. The most important growing countries for Robusta are Indonesia, West Africa, Brazil and Vietnam. The proportion of Robusta coffee in the production is just on 60 percent.
The demand for coffee is affected by seasonable fluctuations. The extreme movements, as it is known from pork bellies, don’t actually exist, but it has shown that, in the summer months coffee is consumed 12% less than the average for the year, the coffee imports decrease during the late spring and summer, but they increase again in the autumn and winter. In 2005 Brazil was the world’s largest coffee producer with 2,179 million tonnes of green coffee beans, which constituted around 28.2% of the world harvest, followed by Vietnam, Indonesia and Colombia. A bag of coffee weight 60 kg.
The Arabica coffee is traded only on the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT). The Future is traded in US-Cent for American pound (lb) and includes 37.500 lbs. It corresponds to around 260 bags of 60 kg (1 lb = 0,453592 kg). The Robusta coffee, which is traded since 2000 on the London International Financial Futures Exchange (LIFFE), includes 5 tonnes (= 80 bag). The quotation is made in US-Dollar per tonne.
Index- Membership: GSCI-, CRB-, DJ AIG Commodity und RICI-Index
Important Stock Markets: NYBOT and LIFFE
Contract-Cycles – NYBOT: March, May, July, September and December
Columns: 1
Contract-Cycles – LIFFE: every second month, starting from January
Contract-Size: NYBOT: 37.500 lbs, LIFFE: 5.000 t