Rwanda has made strides in being competitive in the global market, producing quality cash crop.

It only came as a surprise to many who have not followed the growth of Rwandan coffee over the years.

Rwanda’s efforts to produce one of the best quality in the coffee sector has indeed paid off. Rwanda’s coffee has now scooped two awards in the 3rd annual Ernesto Illy International Coffee Awards that took place on October.

Ngororero Coffee Washing Station bagged a brace of prestigious accolades including “Best of the Best” and “Coffee Lover’s Choice” awards, marking a historical milestone. No coffee from any part of the world has ever picked up both awards, which was an achievement that will go down into the history books. Indeed the strategies to make the world’s best coffee bore fruits.

In its bid to be competitive in the international market, Rwanda has made a series of changes in the coffee sector, to ensure high-quality production of the cash crop. Last year, the National Agricultural Export Development Board (NAEB) implemented new approaches that ranked the country’s export among the best, globally.

Based on the beans’ aromatic richness, complexity, balance, elegance and aroma intensity, and strength, a jury of coffee experts in New York, USA considered Rwanda’s coffee as “Best of the Best.” The exposure was vital for the country to learn more about the global market and areas to improve to be at the top of the log.

Bagging the two awards this year, Rwanda edged top producers of coffee in the world including Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, India, and Nicaragua. The country eased past both South American and East Asian countries that as well are potential competitors in producing top-notch quality coffee.

llycaffè S.p.A. an Italian coffee roasting company that specializes in the production of espresso announced Rwanda’s coffee milestone in the gala. The company that was founded by Francesco Illy in 1933 is a global leader in high-quality coffee, passionate about perfection.

Rwanda made its official debut at exporting roasted coffee to the USA in 2017, a ten-tonne consignment with the first shipment valued at U$77,000. The business partnership opened up other investment opportunities for the Rwanda coffee to expand its market and increase its share of export revenue. It also boosts trade in the agriculture sector between the U.S and Rwanda, furthering the partnership between America and Africa.

Rwanda seeks to export at least 24, 500 tonnes of quality coffee in a year, 1,500 tonnes more than 2017 and 2,500 tonnes more than 2016. As part of NAEB’s strategies to produce quantity and quality coffee, they aim at planting 34,000 new coffee trees by the year 2024.

Global prices should increase the export receipts given that the country sells quality cash crop. Rwanda’s total coffee export revenue rose to $59.8 million in the first 11 months of 2017, up from $53.8 million earned over the same period in 2016, registering a growth in value of 11.1 percent or $6 million.

source: http://www.exchange.co.tz / Exchange / Home> Industry & Trade> Agribusiness / by John Green / October 18th, 2018

Perhaps because I’m writing this as I sit in a vibrant, quirky coffee shop in Washington Heights, its walls decorated with graffiti-inspired art and fake ivy, it strikes me that whenever I arrive in a new city, I make a beeline for the nearest independent coffee house. But it wasn’t until I read Shachar Pinsker’s new book, “A Rich Brew: How the Café Created Modern Jewish Culture” (NYU Press), that I learned that Jews and coffee shops have been connected for at least a century; Jews, especially Jewish writers, he argues, have made the café their primary gathering place and, in many cases, their collective muse. (Read The Jewish Week’s review on the book here.)

Pinsker, who teaches Hebrew literature at the University of Michigan, chronicles the history of cafés in six cities (Odessa, Warsaw, Vienna, Berlin, New York and Tel Aviv), showing that major Jewish journalists, novelists, poets and playwrights, from Sholem Aleichem to Isaac Bashevis Singer, were not just inspired by coffee shops but frequently used them as the settings for their work.

Jews have a long history with coffee. While coffee houses first sprang up in Constantinople, Cairo and other Middle Eastern cities during the mid-sixteenth century, it was a Jewish entrepreneur who brought the coffee house to Europe, opening one in Livorno in 1632. The first café in England was opened in 1651 in Oxford by one “Jacob the Jew,” who was an immigrant from Lebanon.

As coffee drinking became popular throughout Europe, according to the late Robert Liberles in “Jews Welcome Coffee: Tradition and Innovation in Early Modern Germany,” engagements between Jewish couples were sealed by the parents over a cup of coffee rather than a drink at the local tavern. David Liss’ 2003 historical novel, “The Coffee Trader,” centers on a 17th-century Jewish refugee from the Portuguese Inquisition who tries to corner the market on coffee only to be caught up in all kinds of commercial and romantic entanglements.

The kinds of food served in cafés also often had a Jewish connection; think of the Viennese Jewish pastry maker Franz Sacher and his famous creation, Sacher Torte, or Stephen Klein, also from Vienna, a Jewish chocolatier who escaped to America in 1939 and started Barton’s Candy Corp.

Donald Schoenholt is the president of Gillies Coffee Company, the oldest coffee maker in the country. The business, which was started in 1840 by a Scottish family, was taken over by Donald’s uncle, Mac, in 1912. I first met Donald in the late 1980s, when I joined the Little Neck Jewish Center, which he served as president. It was the era of the yuppies; Starbucks (acquired in 1987 by Howard Schultz, a Jewish guy from Brooklyn) was just emerging on the scene and “specialty coffees” were all the rage. As Schoenholt put it, “People were starting to eat brie instead of Velveeta,” and they needed a more upscale coffee to go with their meals.

Schoenholt told me that Jewish merchants participated in the American coffee trade since the 18th century, and that, “with each wave of Jewish immigration, more Jews were drawn to it.” While New York was the center for manufacturing coffee, he said, the major port for the importation of coffee was New Orleans, where Jewish merchants like Jacob Aron traded in both coffee and gold. By the 1880s, Philip Wechsler, an immigrant from Austria who became a major donor to the United Jewish Appeal, had opened a coffee-roasting factory in New York. William Black (né Schwartz), who started by selling shelled nuts under a stairway in Times Square, founded the chain of luncheonettes known as Chock Full o’ Nuts. And Samuel Schonbrunn, a Jewish immigrant from Hungary, created the Savarin brand of coffee, which was served at the Waldorf Astoria.

In our time, coffee shops loom large in pop culture — think of Monk’s Café, where the characters on “Seinfeld” hang out in almost every episode, sitting in a booth near the front door. (The exterior shots were taken, of course, at Tom’s Restaurant, an actual diner at Broadway and 112th.) Ruth Cohen (that’s her real name), the cashier, appears in more episodes than any other character besides the stars. Jerry Seinfeld went on to create and host the web series “Comedians in Cars Having Coffee,” now in its 10th season; it has featured Mel Brooks, Bob Einstein and Sarah Silverman.

And who could forget “Diner,” Barry Levinson’s semi-autobiographical 1982 valentine to his hometown of Baltimore; the film is about a group of 20-something Jewish friends in the 1950s who made the local diner their gathering spot.

Even non-Jews associate coffee with the Chosen People. As a sign outside a church in Harveys Lake, Pa. (in the Poconos) asked last summer, “How does Moses make coffee? Hebrews it.”

Ted Merwin’s column appears the fourth week of the month

source: http://www.jewishweek.timesofisrael.com / Times of Israel / Home> The New York Jewish Week / by Ted Merwin / October 23rd, 2018

Silas Brasileiro, President of the Brazilian Coffee Growers’ Council, will open the Global Coffee Platform’s (GCP) Global Coffee Sustainability Conference 2018, to be held from 8 to 9 November in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

The annual event brings together sustainability companies and representatives from nine GCP platforms around the world – Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia, Uganda, Colombia, Kenya, Honduras, Tanzania and Peru – to discuss topics such as the future of sustainability, the role of producing and consuming countries, sustainable coffee regions, and impact investments to promote sustainability.

Other speakers include keynote speaker José Luiz Tejon, Director of Biomarketing Agência de Propaganda e Consultoria; José Sette, Executive Director of the International Coffee Organization; Marcelo Burity, Head of Green Coffee Development at Nestlé; Daniel Martz, Director of Corporate Affairs and Sustainability at Jacobs Douwe Egberts; Han de Groot, CEO of Rainforest Alliance; Steven Collet, Director of the Dutch Sustainable Trade Initiative; and Kim Elena Ionescu, Sustainability Director of the Specialty Coffee Association.

“The conference will be a unique opportunity to interact with prestigious names of the Brazilian and international coffee sectors, professionals of public and private sectors, associations, certifiers and verifiers, NGOs, people truly engaged and committed to coffee sustainability,” GCP Chairman Carlos Brando says in a release.

For more information, visit www.gcsc.coffee.

source: http://www.gcrmag.com / Global Coffee Report / October 23rd, 2018

Seoul Cafe Show has announced it will launch Cafe Show Mocha Port, a one-to-one business matching and networking service to connect buyers and exhibitors at the event, taking place from 8 to 11 November.

Seoul Cafe Show expects the online meeting service to provide productive customer relationship management and communications, resulting in more business and efficient time management.

More than 600 exhibitors have already registered their products in Mocha Port, from fields such as coffee, food and beverage, bakeries, interior, machine and equipment, and start-up companies.

Approximately 6000 coffee industry buyers from about 30 countries, including Japan, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, India, Malaysia, the Americans, and Europe, will go on the pre-matching system.

Exhibitors and buyers who want to match the companies participating in the Seoul Cafe Show can register until the end of October. The online pre-matching will be processed until the end of October.

The Seoul Cafe Show will be held at Samsung-dong in Seoul, Korea.

Cafe Show Seoul will host a range of events, competitions, and seminars such as the World Coffee Leaders Forum, Seoul Coffee Festival, and World Coffee Battle.

For more information, visit www.cafeshow.com/eng

source: http://www.gcrmag.com / Global Coffee Report / October 24th, 2018