California-grown coffee?
Posted by TheShot on 03 Dec 2010 | Tagged as: Beans
The LA Times today published a curious article on attempts to commercially grow coffee in the continental U.S. (California, in fact): Market Watch: Jay Ruskey perks interest with California-grown coffee – latimes.com. Started as a project in 2002 with an eye towards replicating Kona‘s successful specialty coffee industry in Hawaii, two of the biggest challenges of establishing a coffee growing industry here are the relatively low yields (climate, terroir) and high labor costs (the latter shared with Kona coffees and reflected in its high market price). However, the market conditions for specialty coffee may be changing some assumptions.
In the meantime, the current, and first legitimate, crop is producing some interesting results.
1 Comment »
Fascinating. I would love to try the beans grown in California.
Interesting historical tidbit mentioned in the article, that in the 1850s Mr. Bascom unsuccessfully tried to grow coffee here in in Santa Clara Valley.