Covid-19, the Coffee Supply Chain and New Coffees
Carrie Masek
Here at Coffee by the Roast, we’ve been able to avoid the worst aspects of the pandemic, because of the cooperation of our team members and the support of our customers. Thank you, each and every one of you!
One aspect of the pandemic we have not been able to avoid is how it affects the global supply chain and the availability of green coffee beans.
Remember the good old days when we happily bought toilet paper and hand sanitizer without thinking about the path they took to arrive at our stores? Covid-19 changed that and all of us are now familiar with the fragility of the global supply chain.
Nowhere is that fragility more evident than in the coffee industry. Coffee grows in the tropics and coffee beans must travel from the farm, where they’re grown, to a mill where the green beans are processed and bagged, to a local port where the bags of beans are put into containers and loaded onto ships, to a US port where the containers of beans are unloaded and go through customs before being loaded again on either trucks or trains to travel the last leg of the journey to the importer’s warehouse. Once the green coffee beans are in that warehouse, they finally become available to roasters like us and coffee lovers like you.
Even in good years, small glitches occur in the coffee supply chain that end up delaying the arrival of green coffee into this country by weeks or even months. Overall, though, the supply chain works pretty well and roasters like us have a good sense of when new crop coffees will become available. Take the coffees of Central America. The first of the new crop coffees usually arrive in the warehouses mid-April through May and continue to stream in through the summer months. This year has been different. How different? Let’s follow a specific coffee and see.
Honduras is an underappreciated coffee origin. We love the rich, smooth, sweet coffees of Honduras and particularly appreciate the coffee grown on the San Vicente estate because of its high quality and reliable availability. Last year, Honduras San Vicente arrived in our warehouse toward the end of April and we put a spotlight on the coffee in our April 30th blog.
This year, Covid-19 hit Honduras hard. Traffic within the country was shut down and though the ports mostly remained open, they slowed considerably. The new crop of Honduras San Vicente was stuck in Honduras through April and May and didn’t hit the importer’s warehouse until late June. Luckily, the bean quality was not affected, but the price was higher than it has been because of increased shipping costs.
Not all coffees faired as well with the delays and shipping complications. We haven’t even seen some of our favorites, like Costa Rica Monte Crisol. For others, the bean quality was reduced and didn’t meet our standards. Less expensive beans have had the most problems with availability and quality. Surprisingly, higher end green coffee beans have become more available than in past years. As a result, we’ve filled our warehouse with extraordinary coffees and can’t wait to share them with you.
Some of them, like three new Roaster Gold coffees, are already on our website. Other's will be there shortly. Check out the site and keep an eye on this blog. I’ll be writing a lot about new coffees over the next few weeks. For now, let’s take a closer look at Honduras San Vicente.
A smooth, easy-drinking coffee, Honduras San Vicente has zesty citrus topnotes, vanilla sweetness and a rich chocolate finish. We like it best at either a City roast level, to bring out the citrus notes, or a Full City roast level, to emphasize the coffee’s richness. A high grown coffee, it takes darker roasts equally well, turning sweeter and bolder the darker it goes. It took us longer than usual to get this lovely coffee, but we’re glad we waited for it.
Have supply chain problems complicated your life? If so, we’d love to hear about it. Please join the conversation and share your thoughts on the Facebook thread or in a comment on this blog. Or, if you'd like to share your opinions with the wider world, leave us a coffee review on Google or on your favorite review site. Not only do we value your opinions, but reviews help more people find us. Help us connect coffee lovers to fresh, quality coffee!
Thanks!
We wish all our customers continued good health as conditions around us continue to change.
~ Carrie, Paul and all of us at Coffee by the Roast
Here are links for more information:
Spotlight on Honduras San Vicente