2014 was an exciting year for our beloved coffee, some good, some bad, some strange. As we draw closer to the end of the year, we take a look back at some of the most notable stories from 2014.
December: A time for giving…but probably not for cocaine.
December, time to give and the warmth of seeing others open their gifts. These acts of generosity were put to the test in Berlin when a local coffee roaster opened his latest shipment of coffee from Brazil and found it contained 33 kilos of cocaine! We’re not sure if they had a hearty Christmas smile on their face, but we’re guessing confusion and fear was a more likely response. They reported the “shipment” to the police and to Santa.
November: Peak Coffee Prices
Coffee prices reached their highest in 2.5 years during November. Dry weather in Brazil that has affected much of its annual crop played a role in the increase. Much of the speculation now is how this year’s drought will affect the crop in 2015. Although there has been rain in recent months, the question remains how this will affect the flowering of new plants during 2015.
Many predict that if the weather returns to some semblance of normality, then the crop should be about the same as it was in 2014. If the weather continues to become more extreme, production would fall below 2014 levels.
October: North Cup
A little closer to home we saw the opening of the “Cup North”, a coffee party for all coffee lovers in the North of England. Hosted by the local coffee community, it was an opportunity to focus attention on culinary and coffee developments outside of London.
While the focus was on coffee, the 2-day event also promoted beer, chocolates and some of the exciting ‘foodie’ developments in and around Manchester. Let’s hope it continues for 2015.
September: Coffee and Biofuels
There are many known alternative uses for leftover coffee ranging from effective composting to using it as an odor eliminator for stinky socks. One of the most exciting developments of 2014 was the new company Bio-Bean.
Set up in January by Arthur Kay, the company takes used coffee grounds from London coffee shops and turns the waste into an advanced biofuel. In September they received a €500,000 grant from the Dutch Lottery.
Though widely suspected to be a shard with which to boost your UK scores during EuroVision (okay, I made that up), the money will help eco-green Bio-Bean expand its operations and build a plant big enough to to handle the processing of the collected coffee grounds. A gold star for Bio-Bean. A great idea and good luck for 2015.
August: Coffee Theme Park receives the green light
If you’ve ever dreamed of visiting a theme park with a giant caffeinated mouse, then August may have been the month for you. Funds were awarded to develop a 64-acre coffee theme park in the Gangwon province of South Korea.
The area has seen a lot of development since the announcement that the 2018 Winter Olympics would be held in the area. Designed as an environmentally friendly family theme park, the site will also house a production, roasting and distribution facility. Presumably, the latter will not be of interest to children. A distribution coaster with embossed livery on the side doesn’t really appeal to kids.
However, the project will create more than a thousand jobs for the local community and will feature a tourist center and a coffee museum.
July: fresh vs. Moment
In July, the Euromonitor International Study published its latest research highlighting the continued growth of instant coffee in countries historically associated with tea drinkers, namely China, Turkey and India. Almost half the world prefers instant coffee to freshly ground coffee.
In the UK, although the coffee market is maturing and we are seeing a greater understanding of fresh and gourmet coffee products, the instant coffee market has continued to gain strength, especially when consumed at home. Shockingly, in the UK, British Americans are responsible for over a third of all instant coffee sold in Western Europe.
While offering instant coffee in many social or business situations is still often considered unacceptable, when you’re at home, these malleable rules seem to disappear. Convenience in many situations wins out over quality.
Some of the growth was attributed to the marketing of instant coffee, many of the words traditionally reserved for fresh coffee were making their way onto packets, jars and bags in the supermarket. One product describes itself as the world’s first “instant whole grain”…we still have no idea what that means!
June: World Championships
June saw the winner of the 2014 World Barista Championship. The title ultimately went to Hidenori Izaki of Maruyama Coffee Company, Japan. The judges awarded him the award after judging all the contestants on a selection of criteria including their cleanliness, creativity, technical skills, and presentation.
Hidenori was the fifteenth winner of the competition, produced and hosted by the World Coffee Event (WCE). The annual championship was held in Rimini, Italy and was the culmination of many local and regional finals around the world.
Congratulations to all the entrants, especially Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood from the UK who ultimately came in fifth, yes we are showing a geographic bias.
final positions
Champion: Hidenori Izaki, Japan
2nd: Kapo Chiu, Hong Kong
3rd: Christos Loukakis, Greece
4th: Craig Simon, Australia
5th: Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood, UK
6th: William Hernandez, El Salvador
May: Coffee and Cows
It seems like used coffee grounds can be used for just about anything! Starbucks has partnered with a Japanese contact lens maker in hopes of turning coffee grounds scraps into viable, environmentally friendly livestock feed for the Tokyo dairy market.
The fermented lees were removed from Starbucks stores and incorporated into cattle feed. The process has been tried before, but the results showed that the coffee acted as a diuretic among cattle, and the high salt content was a concern. The new process apparently includes lactic acid fermentation which ensures that the food produced becomes a viable option. Again, we have no idea how this works, but it sounds very impressive.
April: UK Barista Championships
If you mention the World Championship during April, most people (probably tea drinkers) would immediately think of the F1 Grand Prix in China, or the start of the World Snooker Championship with its fancy, whispering vests. For creative UK cafe people, April can only mean one thing; preparation for the World Barista Championship had begun.
Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood, who took home his second title, eventually won the UK regional Barista Championship, held during the London Coffee Festival. Congratulations to Maxwell. With the prize under his arm, he would travel to Italy to compete in the World Championships in June. Flying the Union Jack… probably without a vest.
February/March: The Soccer World Cup
Much of the speculation during February and March revolved around the soccer World Cup and how Brazilians’ passion for their national sport would affect the coffee industry.
With around a third of all coffee coming from Brazil, concerns were that the games held in Rio de Janeiro would disrupt production, delivery and the general infrastructure of the coffee industry. At the risk of sounding anticlimactic, everything went well, although it did not for the Brazilian soccer team.
January: Myth busted
We’ve probably all heard the old wives’ tale that coffee causes dehydration. We are told that we should drink a glass of water for every cup of coffee we consume. We have no idea where this theory came from, but research published in January by the University of Bath concluded that it was actually a myth.
Instead of causing dehydration, moderate coffee consumption actually hydrates us in a similar way to water. Personally, if I were stranded in the Sahara with a choice of a cup of coffee or nothing, I’d certainly choose the former…but only if it had cream…and sprinkles.
