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No caffeine fix for a groggy industry
Coffee shops these days are stand alone establishments offering just coffee on the menu, unlike in the past when it was just served after meals in restaurants, if anyone would even care to order. There were hardly any coffee houses 20 years ago, except for coffee stalls in public markets catering to the early bird. Demand for coffee was purely for household purposes, usually by old people. Coffee was something only my lola would have for breakfast.
Today coffee is a must for “coolness”, constantly attracting fans across ages or economic classes. Coffee shops portrayed in western pop culture as a place where the “in crowd” hangs out are lucrative businesses in the Philippines. Anywhere in the country for the last decade a coffee shop opens and beckons a growing number of people who do not even care that the price of caffeine fix itself could jolt them back to their senses.
A regular cup of coffee would cost more than P50.00 (net of tax and service charges). More than double that in international chains like Starbucks. Ambience comes with the bean (and no one has the moral ascendancy to ask why designer coffee costs that much). For those who cannot afford ambience, there are a dozen other brands and variants in 3 in 1 coffee sachets. Demand is definitely up.
With non-stop orders for capucceteras, and café-au-whatevers, I am beginning to wonder if coffee producers in the Philippines are really benefiting from the demand uptick. The country seems to be poised for “world cup” dominance with our ideal tropical climate and the just the right PH levels in our soils to grow good beans. We have farmers eager to get into planting action at the hint of hefty profits.
Why isn’t anyone jumping the bait?
Let’s back track 300 years earlier. The Philippines was a major coffee exporter back in the forced labor days under Spaniards whose galleons carried sacks and tons of Philippine coffee to Europe and America. In fact the Philippines was the world’s 4th coffee exporter in the 1800’s.
Quoting a report from think tank, IDEA, the glory days of Philippine coffee ended in 1889 due to coffee rust infestation. While coffee production plunged in the country, Brazil was already making headway towards being the world’s leading coffee producing country.
There were efforts to revive the industry in the 50’s and 60’s when government encouraged farmers to plant a more resistant coffee variety in major coffee-producing provinces like Batangas. Although it managed to perk up the dormant industry, it only resulted in an over supply in the domestic market.
Exporting was futile. Local growers could not beat low coffee prices also due to excess coffee production from leading exporting countries in Central and Latin America. We revived too late.
In the last decade when coffee demand steadily rose, the number of coffee farms in various countries also increased bringing coffee prices down. Countries like Brazil and Vietnam continued to flood the world market with their beans, pushing local farmers to shift to other crops.
Besides coffee is facing many other obstacles today apart from supply and demand challenges.
Global warming in tropical Philippines threatens coffee farms. Our typhoons and floods are making farmers reluctant to plant coffee. Too much risk with very low returns.
The global financial crisis is also affecting coffee consumption even if more than half of the world’s population cannot start their day without their morning fix. Seattle coffee giant Starbucks has already closed about 600 branches worldwide due to the dip in demand.
There’s really no money in coffee. A friend who used to own a coffee shop says a full house can be deceiving. Customers can stay in coffee shops for hours, chat, read newspapers, go online with free wi-fi, all for the cost of a cup of brewed coffee.
(Comments or suggestions are welcome. Please e-mail: stanley.palisada@gmail.com)