The Business Recorder, 8/14/2012
Brazil guzzled almost 20 million bags of coffee in the 12-month period through April, the roasters’ association ABIC said on Friday, a rise of about 3 percent that is unlikely to be achieved again in the next 12 months. The world’s top coffee producer is also the world’s No 2 consumer, drinking the equivalent of roughly 40 percent of what it produces. The local coffee industry expects the country could eventually overtake the top consumer, the United States.
“Brazilians are consuming more cups of coffee per day and diversifying the ways they drink it during the day, with espresso coffees, cappuccinos and other combinations with milk, on top of filter coffee drunk at home,” said Marcio Reis Maia, ABIC’s director of Research and Information.
These new formats are also boosting demand for higher quality arabicas as a burgeoning middle class acquires a taste for better brews and splashes out on espresso machines made for the home that are now all the rage in Brazil’s chic shopping malls. That extra demand will not go unnoticed by the global coffee market as roasters drain stocks and reconfigure blends to cope with the scarcity of high quality arabicas, due in part to a run of poor harvests from prestigious grower Colombia.
Brazil Portal 