Espresso News and Reviews – TheShot.coffeeratings.com

Just when you think that Starbucks chairman, Howard Schultz, might be the last person left at the corporation who understands anything about good coffee, he makes boneheaded comments that dispel any chance of that happening again: Starbucks chairman sees gourmet coffee shortages | Reuters. Today in Mexico City, Mr. Schultz publicly predicted a global shortage [...]

The April 2007 issue of Coffee Talk primarily focused on the annual SCAA conference next month. The most interesting article comes from George Howell, president of Terroir Coffee Company, who wrote about the state of the world’s quality coffee supplies: Towards a segmented quality coffee market [PDF file, page 8]. With the growing public awareness [...]

As Frank Sinatra once sang, “They got a lot of coffee in Brazil”. However, the driest winter in two decades is threatening to drop next year’s crop yield by almost a third: Brazilian drought leaves coffee crop high and dry | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle. As the reality of global climate change sinks in, one [...]

New forecasts continue to suggest an upcoming shortage of coffee stocks due to increasing consumer demand and declining bean stocks in a few key regions: Coffee supply crisis on horizon for 2007 | Reuters.com. While some of the more mystic types are busy correlating coffee supplies to sunspot activity, futures analysts are projecting a continuing [...]

A Reuters poll expects coffee prices to remain elevated over worldwide supply concerns. Supplies are generally expected to rebound in the next crop year as regional markets recover from hurricanes and drought and Brazil eases the throttle on production: POLL-Funds, supply worries seen buoying coffee in 2006. But to give you a sense of just [...]

According to the VietNam News, the average price of wholesale coffee in Vietnam has risen up to 80% in the past year due to a regional drought in 2004-5. Coffee supplies are estimated at 30-50% lower than normal: Coffee prices surge on demand. Given the awful, mass production quality robusta beans that largely come out [...]

According to the Associated Press, the National Guard in Venezuela seized some 330 tons of coffee beans that were being held back by growers in protest of government price controls. Venezuela is something of an exception among Central and South American coffee growing nations: the locals actually drink the stuff. President Hugo Chavez imposed a [...]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently released a study projecting the world’s supply of coffee: Forecast: World coffee exports to fall. The good news? Specialty coffee crops, like those from Kona, Hawaii, are on the rise. The bad news? Vietnamese robusta continues to proliferate on the commodity coffee market with crude, inexpensive beans that threaten [...]