June Specialty Coffee Report
June brought with it warmth, new coffees, and exciting origins. Read the update below from our founder, Stephen Hurst.
As the first Brazil harvests are underway, we had the opportunity to cup the first new crop Brazils this week. Hopes are high following the excellent 2020 harvest. We expect new crop specialty Brazils to arrive in September.
Summer also means that Centrals are pouring in – Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, Honduras, and Costa Rica are all afloat or arriving in each of our warehouses. Arrivals have been meeting decent demand / take up not least because of the Colombia disruptions leading to scarcity (and high price) of spot Colombians. The internal Colombia price is currently running twice the long-term average (1.5m Pesos/carga now vs 750,000 pesos long term average). Between January 2021 Colombia arrivals and August/September 2021 Colombia arrivals, we will be increasing our Colombia sales price, reflecting a marked rise in specialty Colombia prices on the back of the local market, widespread disruptions, blockades, extremely high internal prices, and so on.
Sales in June follow the same positive trajectory, though tailed off a bit in the second half of the month – the first two weeks of June were brisk but then drifted off. The UK continues to be our vanguard market, surviving despite the struggles with lockdown and closures of various hospitality industries. Mercanta’s logistical expertise, our long trading history, stable and positive financial situation, and commitment to the UK domestic market post Brexit (where others have departed or cut back) have yielded the dividend of excellent UK sales even though the UK market has been impacted negatively by COVID.
It is worth mentioning that Mercanta is the ‘’front line’’ of the logistics and distribution network, buying from 20 countries, importing, and distributing via 7 warehouses to 50+ destination countries. There have been various shipping delays throughout the Coffee Belt – but we are working diligently to ensure the coffee arrives safely to each of our warehouses.
Every Mercanta office can report unfortunate problems with trucking, clearing, interminable delays on every pallet movement, before we even mention Brexit and the real and actual impact it has had on front line logistics. Pallet rates in the US have increased, and there have been more occurrences of delays in coffee delivery to clients.
All in all – we are grateful to coffee hunt, and to bring our coffee to you. Thank you for your patience and support. We look forward to another great month full of interesting coffees and wonderful partners.