Coffee lovers face premium arabica shortage after rains in Brazil
Heavy rains have hurt the quality of Brazil‘s arabica crop, and coffee lovers may find their favourite premium beans harder to buy and pricier. The world is still on course for a coffee surplus, but much of it may be unsuitable for the smoother, more aromatic blends consumers pay extra for.
Brazil makes up around 45% of the world’s arabica, so roasters can’t easily avoid problems there. June rains in Cerrado Mineiro knocked ripe coffee cherries off trees just as harvest was beginning.
Simão Pedro de Lima, head of the Expocacer cooperative, estimated that about 20% of the cherries fell, compared with 5% to 7% in a normal year, according to the Bloomberg report.
Inside this fruit, called a cherry, is a coffee bean. If the cherries are ripe and fall to waterlogged ground, they can soak for days and become contaminated. That extra moisture can lead to over-fermentation, which results in the mouldy or musty flavours that coffee graders reject. If you pick the beans quickly, you may still lose some of the acidity and aromas associated with premium arabica.
Then another problem came with a second wave of rain in July. It landed on beans farmers had already spread out to dry, forcing some to start over.
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The key is to dry the coffee evenly, preserving the flavour. Repeatedly wetting and drying the beans makes it more difficult to achieve that balance and increases the risk that an otherwise large harvest will produce less coffee suitable for premium blends.
Plenty of coffee, but fewer premium beans
Brazil is still on course for a bumper crop. Global production is expected to exceed consumption by 10.6 million 60kg bags in the October-starting season, the biggest surplus in six years, the US Department of Agriculture said.
«Beans that meet the quality rules of the Intercontinental Exchange should represent 30% to 35% of the output in my region,» De Lima noted. He anticipates the share to drop to between 10% and 15% after this year’s rains.
These rules stipulate that coffee must be suitable for roasting and free from undesirable flavours of ageing or under-processing. The grades affected are those that roasters, including Starbucks, Lavazza and Illy, seek for premium products.
Arabica futures have risen by about 35% since June, and premium Brazilian beans are already trading above benchmark prices. Stocks of certified coffee in US and European warehouses are also close to the lowest level this century.
