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Costa Rican Coffee Profits Coming Again:
Costa Rican Arabica Coffee Prices to go up as Supply declines

Costa Rica 2011-12 Coffee Exports To March 26 Drop 3% On Year 

According to a Dow Jones Newswire report, Costa Rica's coffee exports through March 26 were down 3% on year to 566,881 bags of 60 kilograms each, the Costa Rican Coffee Institute said Monday. 
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In a report by Jean Guereroro from Naranjo, Costa Rica to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Costa Rican Coffee bean growers are taking seriously their unhappy experiences of 2001.

In that year Arabica prices hit an all-time low of 41.5 cents a pound.  The experience proved the need of diversification to Costa Rican Coffee farmers.

The answer has been side businesses funded by last year's high profit year, producing diversification of the business to absorb the such radical fluctuations in the coffee bean commodities market.

One of the examples given was a Costa Rican central highland  farmer who used high profits of last year to then plant banana trees among his coffee plants.  

Tomatoes and firewood produced by laurel trees added to his 45-acre farm's product diversity. 

Jose Antonio Vera, head of sales and exports for Coopronaranjo, 2,000 member coffee grower coop, said it launched two supermarkets and a roasting mill where producers can grind their own coffee and sell at a greater value than their beans. 

Arabica beans, the most favored by coffee lovers, has hit 17-month lows. But this time growers have been somewhat insulated, he said, by that very diversification.  And an additional benefit occurred: 

With those the side businesses, an actual decrease of the production of Arabica beans has caused upward movement in the price of beans as demand has also grown.  This has included demand pressure arising from emerging market areas.  

The WSJ quoted Robin Rosenberg, PFG Best analyst, expects coffee prices will again hit $3 a pound over the next two years, if supply continues to decline. 

Over the decade the WSJ cited a decrease from 2.3 million bags in a growing season, to 1.5 million bags.  

Acres used for growing dropped from 247,000 to "212,000 or less over that over that time" It cited the president of the Costa Rican Coffee Institute, Ron Peters. 

"Prices are going much, much higher," the WSJ quoted Mr. Rosenberg . "But it may not be next week."

Also sprawling urban developments have shrunk availability of the  best coffee land since then. Other land has gone wasted as weeds and non-commercial trees have taken over the land, it said. 

Coffee producers also are taking advantage of the fact that their plantations are often in scenic areas visited by tourists. 

Coopronaranjo started a coffee tour five years ago that draws hundreds of foreigners a year who each pay $22 to visit Espiritu Santo, an old-fashioned hacienda several hours from the capital of San Jose, to take part in the harvest and participate in coffee-tasting classes.

"There was a time where the producers had to choose between feeding themselves and feeding their coffee," Mr. Vera said. "So they neglected the plantations. It's good that in these moments that prices are good, they've changed their mentality and culture." 

"BEST BEANS" in Costa Rica Found and most in Micros!

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Seventeen of the most skilled coffee cupping experts in the world have chosen the best beans in Costa Rica, and many of the wining roasts come from micro coops in the mountainous regions of Los Santos, province of San Jose.
Posted by Jaime Lopez on May 14, 2012 in Entertainment

As written on the pages of Los Santos Hoy, an online news portal for one of Costa Rica’s premier coffee growing and roasting regions, the 2012 Taza de la Excelencia (Cup of Excellence) went to the following producers: 

Finca Zamora de Heredia La Lia de Tarrazu ASOPROAAA de Acosta Monte Copey de Dota. 

Once again the Dota and Tarrazu regions have the some of the best coffees in Costa Rica, and thus some of the best in the world. 

The seventeen members of the coffee cupping jury this year came from Brazil, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, South Korea, and the United States. The Costa Rica Star has previously written about the elaborate practice of coffee cupping, which is similar to wine tasting in scope and complexity. 

Coffee cupping is mostly practiced by professionals who are involved in different capacities within the coffee industry. While it is safe to assume that some kind of tasting and aromatic quality control has existed since ancient times, the standard practice of coffee cupping for the sake of comparison across blends and roasts did not begin in earnest until the late 19th century. 

American coffee giants Hills Brothers are generally credited for introducing cupping to the coffee industry. At the end of the 19thcentury, the Hills Brothers Coffee Company had set up its coffee packaging headquarters in San Francisco, California. 

The tasters at Hills Brothers used to roast and steep samples of coffee offloaded from the ships arriving at the Embarcadero from different parts of the world. The results from this cupping determined if Hills Brothers would be interested in purchasing coffee for further roasting and packaging. 

According to the Fine Coffees Association of Costa Rica (SCACR in Spanish), the Cup of Excellence began with 96 different roasts submitted by domestic producers back in March. Different types of growers and roasters are participate, from the massive sun coffee farms that export thousands of metric tons, to the small coops and family operations that only have a handful of choice clients. 

After several rounds of cupping, around 25 domestic and international roasts are submitted to an online auction that will take place on July 3rd. 

In the past, winning roasts at the auctions have fetched prices around $27 per pound. Last year’s winner, La Estrella from Dota went for $20 at the auction. 

The price of a pound of coffee in the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) these days is just under $2, according to Andrea Navarro of Costa Rica Hoy. 

The auction prices are consistent with the economics of gourmet and organic coffee these days. 
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Costa Rican Coffee Bean Blog!

Costa Rican free flight
Are you active or retired military?

Sipping Costa Rican coffee, beans and rice on your plate (traditional meal), IN COSTA RICA after a FREE flight?  Yes, you can do this military personnel and those getting military retire pay.  How?

Soto Cano Air Base in Honduras receives traffic on a regular basis from Charleston Air Force Base.  Also Tocumen Intl Panama City Panama receives flights from the New Orleans Naval Air Station.

Neither of course are "direct hits" and require secondary transportation to Costa Rica.  

That "secondary" link from Panama or from Honduras to Costa Rica is found in Ticabus - a bus line running from Panama through Mexico City and points in between.  
For Honduras space-a information,  Here's contact information at Soto Cano: Email pao@jtfb.southcom.mil (Public Affairs Office) Joint Operations Center, phone 011-504-234-4149

Also, a good ongoing source for information can be found HERE
Help Farmer's Thrive!  www.thrivefarmers.com
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