Travel, Market, and Show

Wow. It has been quite a while since my last post. Lots of water under the bridge. In fact, I think some empty chairs, a few pieces of lumber and some garbage floated past the bridge during flood stage in that time too...

Andrew and Kathleen, and son Zach, are off to Costa Rica tomorrow to meet with the Juan Leon and family, and visit their farm that produces our great Costa Rica Heredia El Tigre de Barva coffee that we exclusively import. I am jealous of his nice opportunity to travel to such a fun source country and to meet with a true "OG" in the Costa Rican coffee biz. I would accuse him of making me go to the, shall we say "wilder" origins, like Papua New Guinea, if he hadn't traveled there after me. Wait a minute, could he have sent me there first to ensure his safe travels later? I wish the family safe travels and a great time in a wonderful Central American country.

The coffee market has been in recent spike due to shortages in Colombian coffee shipments. It has been said that Colombia oversold their crop and then, what would you know, the crop also came in 40% short. Prices for Colombians surpassed those for Kenyas for a period of time. No fun for the unprepared or those who are contracted to sell 100% Colombian who weren't hedged... The price run settled a bit, but everyone jumped on board and suddenly diffs on Centrals were spiking too. Time should settle the market, but this shows me, yet again, that the commodity market waits for nobody. When it goes up, it goes up. You can't argue with a shipper or they will go to another buyer and you will stand empty handed.

I managed a quick day trip to the Las Vegas CoffeeFest in June. I flew in from Burbank at 10am and grabbed a quick, over-priced cab to the convention center. I waited excitedly for the exhibition floor to open and then, when the ribbon was cut, poured into the show and went directly to the first aisle to begin my quest for all things coffee. After what seemed like a few minutes, I disappointingly arrived at the end of the exhibition floor some 46 minutes later. And, to make matters worse, I had stopped at numerous vendor booths, consumed numerous cups of espresso, and talked with at least 10 people I knew and had run into. What I am saying is, "What a totally disappointing show!" If I had not been able to enjoy two fantastic espressos made by the grandmasterflash, Phil Hand, of The Supreme Bean, I would have to call the show a total waste of my time and money. I got to talk with many fellow importers there, and the repeated topic concerned how poor the show was, both in terms of exhibitors and with attendees. I guess the economy was showing its strength (read: weakness). In any event, by 4pm, I had made my way around the show floor at least 5 more times and left for the airport. I caught an earlier flight back to Burbank, and sat on the plane with Phil Hand discussing all things coffee. He is quite the intellect who knows his coffee, and the flight arrived in Burbank way too fast, as I was enjoying our discussions immensely. I now think that the flight home was worth the show!

Hope you are all well and enjoying every last drop of some very good coffee somewhere.