and from Yauco, Utuado, and Lares, come excellent coffees; and, on the
whole, these are considered to be the best coffee regions of the island.
A fine grade of coffee is also grown in the Ciales district. Figures
compiled by the Treasury Department of the insular government for the
purpose of taxation showed that for the tax year 1915-16 there were
167,137 acres of land planted to coffee and valued at $10,341,592, an
average of $61.87 per acre. In 1910, there were 151,000 acres planted in
coffee. In 1916 there were more than 5,000 separate coffee plantations.
Originally the coffee trees of Porto Rico were all of the _arabica_
variety. In recent years numerous others have been introduced, until in
1917 there were more than 2,500 trees of new descriptions on the island.
The virgin land in the interior of the island is admirably adapted to
the coffee tree, and less labor is required to prepare it for plantation
purposes than in many other coffee-growing countries. It is cleared in
the usual manner, and the trees are planted about eight feet apart, an
average of 680 trees to the acre. The seeds are planted in February; and
if the seedlings are transplanted, that is done when they are a year or
a year and a half old. The guama, a big strong tree of dense foliage, is
used for a wind-break on the ridges; and the guava, for shade in the
plantation. Plow cultivation is generally impossible on account of the
lay of the land, and only hoeing and spade work are done. Pruning is
carefully attended to as the trees become full grown.
Flowering is generally in February and March, or even later. Heavy rains
in April make a poor crop. Harvesting begins in September and extends
into January, during which time ten pickings are made.
[Illustration: SINGLE PORTO RICO COFFEE TREE IN FULL BEARING, PROPPED
UP WITH STAKES]
The average yield per acre is between 200 and 300 pounds; but expert
authority--Prof. O.F. Cook--in a statement made to the Committee on
Insular Affairs of the United States House of Representatives, in 1900,
held that under better cultural methods the yield could be increased to
800 or 900 pounds per acre. One estimator has calculated that an average
plantation of 100 acres had cost its owner at the end of six or seven
years, the bearing age, about $13,100 with yields of 75 pounds per acre
in the third and in the fourth years, 400 pounds per acre in the fifth
year, and 500 pounds in the sixth year, the income from which would
practically have met the cost to that time. It is held by the same
authority that an intensively cultivated, well-situated farm of selected
trees, 880 to the acre, should yield some 880 pounds of cleaned coffee
to the acre.
COSTA RICA. Costa Rica ranks next to Guatemala and Salvador among the
Central American countries as a producer of coffee, showing an average
annual yield in recent years of 35,000,000 pounds as compared with
Guatemala's 80,000,000 and Salvador's 75,000,000 pounds. Nicaragua has
an average annual production of 30,000,000 pounds.
Coffee was introduced into Costa Rica in the latter part of the
eighteenth century; one authority saying that the plants were brought
from Cuba in 1779 by a Spanish voyager, Navarro, and another saying that
the first trees were planted several years later by Padre Carazo, a
Spanish missionary coming from Jamaica. For more than a century six big
coffee trees standing in a courtyard in the city of Cartago were pointed
out to visitors as the very trees that Carazo had planted.
The coffee-producing districts are principally on the Pacific slope and
in the central plateaus of the interior. Plantations are located in the
provinces of Cartago, Tres Rios, San José, Heredia, and Alajuela. In the
province of Cartago are several extensive new estates on the slope to
the Atlantic coast. The San José and the Cartago districts are
considered by many to be the best naturally for the coffee tree. The
soil is an exceedingly rich black loam made up of continuous layers of
volcanic ashes and dust from three to fifteen feet deep. Preferable
altitudes for plantations range from 3,000 to 4,500 feet, although a
height of 5,000 feet is not out of use and there are some estates that
do fairly well on levels as low as 1,500 feet.
[Illustration: THE MODERN IDEA IN COFFEE CULTIVATION, COSTA RICA]
INDIA. Tradition has it that a Moslem pilgrim in the seventeenth century
brought from Mecca to India the first coffee seeds known in that
country. They were planted near a temple on a hill in Mysore called Baba
Budan, after the pilgrim; and from there the cultivation of coffee
gradually spread to neighboring districts. Aside from this legend,
nothing further is heard about coffee in India until the early part of
the nineteenth century, when its existence there was confirmed by the
granting of a charter to Fort Gloster, near Calcutta, authorizing that
place to become a coffee plantation.
[Illustration: PICKING COSTA RICA COFFEE]
[Illustration: COFFEE ESTATE IN THE MOUNTAINS OF COSTA RICA]
Planting was begun on the flat land of the plains, but the trees did not
thrive. Then the cultivation was extended to the hills in southern
India, especially in Mysore, where better success was achieved. The
first systematic plantation was established in 1840. For the most part,
the production has always been confined to southern India in the
elevated region near the southwestern coast. The coffee district
comprises the landward slopes of the Western Ghats, from Kanara to
Travancore.
About one-half of the coffee-producing area is in Mysore; and other
plantations are in Kurg (Coorg), the Madras districts of Malabar, and in
the Nilgiri hills, those regions having 86 percent of the whole area
under cultivation. Some coffee is grown also in other districts in
Madras, principally in Madura, Salem, and Coimbator, in Cochin, in
Travancore, and, on a restricted scale, in Burma, Assam, and Bombay. The
area returned as under coffee in 1885 was 237,448 acres; in 1896, as
303,944 acres. Since then there has been a progressive decrease on
account of damage from leaf diseases difficult to combat, and by
competition with Brazilian coffee.
New land that had just been planted with coffee in plantations reported
for 1919-20 amounted to 7,012 acres; while the area abandoned was 8,725
acres, representing a net decrease in cultivated area of 1,713 acres.
[Illustration: BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF A COFFEE ESTATE IN MYSORE, INDIA]
Of the total area devoted to coffee cultivation (126,919 acres), 49
percent was in Mysore, which yielded 35 percent of the total production;
while Madras, with 23 percent of the total area, yielded 38 percent of
the production. The total production for the year 1920-21 is reported as
26,902,471 pounds.
Yield varies throughout the country according to the methods of
cultivation and the condition of the season. On the best estates in a
good season, the yield per acre may be as high as 1,100 or 1,200 pounds,
and on poor estates it may not be over 200 or 300 pounds. The _arabica_
variety is chiefly cultivated. The _robusta_ and _Maragogipe_ have been
tried, but without much success.
A representative plantation is the Santaverre in Mysore, comprising 400
acres, at an elevation of from 4,000 to 4,500 feet, where the coffee
trees, cultivated under shade, produce from 100 to 250 tons of coffee a
year. Other prominent estates in Mysore are Cannon's Baloor and
Mylemoney, the Hoskahn, and the Sumpigay Khan.
NICARAGUA. Coffee trees will grow well anywhere in Nicaragua, but the
best locations have altitudes of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet above sea
level. At such elevations the yield varies from one pound to five pounds
per tree annually; but above or below those, the average production
diminishes to from one pound to one-half pound a tree.
Lands most suitable for the berry are on the Sierra de Managua, in
Diriambe, San Marcos, and Jinotega, and about the base of the volcano
Monbacho near Granada. Good land is also found on the island Omotepe in
Lake Nicaragua, and around Boaco in the department of Chontales, where
cultivation was begun in 1893.
There are also plantations in the vicinity of Esteli and Lomati in the
department of Neuva Segovia. The most extensive operations are in the
departments of Managua, Carazo, Matagalpa, Chontales, and Jinotega, and
from those regions the annual crop has attained to such quantity that it
has become the chief agricultural product of the republic. Poor and
costly means of transportation on the Atlantic slope have operated to
retard the development of the industry there, even though conditions of
climate are not unfavorable.
[Illustration: COFFEE GROWING UNDER SHADE, UBBAN ESTATE, INDIA]
ABYSSINIA. In the absence of any conclusive evidence to the contrary,
the claim that coffee was first made known to modern man by the trees on
the mountains of the northeastern part of the continent of Africa may be
accepted without reserve. Undoubtedly the plant grew wild all through
tropical Africa; but its value as an addition to man's dietary was
brought forth in Abyssinia.
Abyssinia, while it may have given coffee to the world, no longer
figures as a prime factor in supplying the world, and now exports only a
limited quantity. There are produced in the country two coffees known to
the trade as Harari and Abyssinian, the former being by far the more
important. The Harari is the fruit of cultivated _arabica_ trees grown
in the province of Harar, and mostly in the neighborhood of the city of
Harar, capital of the province. The Abyssianian is the fruit of wild
_arabica_ trees that grow mainly in the provinces of Sidamo, Kaffa, and
Guma.
The coffee of Harar is known to the trade as Mocha longberry or
Abyssinian longberry. Most of the plantations upon which it is raised
are owned by the native Hararis, Galla, and Abyssinians, although there
are a few Greek, German, and French planters. The trees are planted in
rows about twelve or fifteen feet apart, and comparatively little
attention is given to cultivation. Crops average two a year, and
sometimes even five in two years. The big yield is in December, January,
and February. The average crop is about seventy pounds, and is mostly
from small plots of from fifty to one hundred trees, there being no very
large plantations. All the coffee is brought into the city of Harar,
whence it is sent on mule-back to Dire-Daoua on the Franco-Ethiopian
Railway, and from there by rail to Jibuti. Some of it is exported
directly from Jibuti, and the rest is forwarded to Aden, in Arabia, for
re-exporting.
Abyssinian, or wild, coffee is also known as Kaffa coffee, from one of
the districts where it grows most abundantly in a state of nature. This
coffee has a smaller bean and is less rich in aroma and flavor than the
Harari; but the trees grow in such profusion that the possible supply,
at the minimum of labor in gathering, is practically unlimited. It is
said that in southwestern Abyssinia there are immense forests of it
that have never been encroached upon except at the outskirts, where the
natives lazily pick up the beans that have fallen to the ground. It is
shelled where it is found, in the most primitive fashion, and goes out
in a dirty, mixed condition.
Formerly, much of this Kaffa coffee was sent to market through Boromeda,
Harar, and Dire-Daoua. An average annual crop was about 6,000 bags, or
800,000 pounds, of which something more than one-half usually went
through Harar. A customs and trading station has lately been established
at Gambela, on the Sobat River: and with the development of this outlet,
there has been a substantial and increasing exploitation of the
wild-coffee plants since 1913. Large areas of land have been cleared,
with a view to cultivation, and attention is being given to improved
methods of harvesting and of preparing the coffee for the market. At one
time a fair amount of coffee from this region went to Adis Abeba on the
backs of pack mules, a journey of thirty-five or forty days, and then
was carried to Jibuti, nearly 500 miles, part of the way by rail. Now
practically all of it goes to Gambela, thence by steamers to Khartoum,
and by rail to the shipping-point at Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
OTHER AFRICAN COUNTRIES. Practically every part of Africa seems to be
suitable for coffee cultivation, even United South Africa, in the
southern part of the continent, producing 140,212 pounds in 1918. To
name all the countries in which it is grown would be to list nearly all
the political divisions of Africa. Among the largest producers are the
British East African Protectorate, 18,735,572 pounds in 1918; French
Somaliland, 11,222,736 pounds in 1917; Angola, 10,655,934 pounds in
1913; Uganda, 9,999,845 pounds in 1918; former German East Africa,
2,334,450 pounds in 1913; Cape Verde Islands, 1,442,910 pounds in 1916;
Madagascar, 707,676 pounds in 1918; Liberia, 761,300 pounds in 1917;
Eritrea, 728,840 pounds in 1918; St. Thomas and Prince's Islands,
484,350 pounds in 1916; and the Belgian Congo, 375,000 pounds in 1917.
[Illustration: A GALLA COFFEE GROWER, AND HIS HELPER, IN HIS GROVE OF
YOUNG TREES NEAR HARAR]
ANGOLA. Coffee is Angola's second product, and there are large areas of
wild-coffee trees. With a production of nearly 11,000,000 pounds, Angola
ranks about third in Africa as a coffee-growing country. The coffee is
gathered and sold by the natives, and there are also several European
companies engaged in the coffee business. The chief coffee belt extends
from the Quanza River northward to the Kongo at an altitude of 1,500 to
2,500 feet. In the Cazengo valley the wild trees are so thick that
thinning out is the only operation necessary to the plantation-owner.
When the trees become too tall, they are simply cut off about two feet
above ground; and new shoots appear from the trunks the following
season.
The largest coffee plantation, owned by the Companhia Agricola de
Cazengo, produced in 1913, a record year, nearly 1,500 tons.
LIBERIA. Coffee is native to Liberia, growing wild in the hinterland of
the negro republic, and in the natural state the trees often attain a
height of from thirty to forty feet. Cultivated Liberian coffee, _Coffea
liberica_, has become a staple of the civilized inhabitants of the
country, and is grown successfully in hot, moist lowlands or on hills
that are not much elevated. On account of the size of the trees, only
about four hundred can be planted to the acre. In recent years the
native Africans have been planting thousands of trees in the district of
Grand Cape Mount. Coffee is grown in all parts of the republic, but
chiefly in Grand Cape Mount and Montserrado.
GENERAL OUTLOOK IN AFRICA. In the African countries under control of
European governments much recent progress has been made in promoting
coffee growing and in improving methods of cultivation.
British interests were reported in 1919 as having started a movement
toward reviving interest in the coffee growing industry in the British
possessions in Africa. The report stated that Uganda, in the East
African Protectorate, had 21,000 acres under coffee cultivation, with
16,000 acres more in other parts of the Protectorate, and 1,300 acres in
Nyasaland; also that there is no hope of an immediate revival of the
industry in Natal, where it was killed twenty years ago by various
pests; "but it should certainly be established in the warmer parts of
Rhodesia; and in the northern part of the Transvaal an effort is being
made to bring this form of enterprise into practical existence."
Coffee growing possibilities in British East Africa (Kenya Colony) are
alluring, according to reports from planters in that region. Late in
1920, Major C.J. Ross, a British government officer there, said that
"British East Africa is going to be one of the leading coffee countries
of the world." Coffee grows wild in many parts of the Protectorate, but
the natives are too lazy to pick even the wild berries.
On the more advanced plantations in all parts of Africa the approved
cultivation methods of other leading countries are carefully followed;
especial care being given to weeding and pruning, because of the rank
growth of the tropics. On the whole, however, little attention is given
to intensive methods.
ARABIA. Whether the coffee tree was first discovered indigenous in the
mountains of Abyssinia, or in the Yemen district of Arabia, will
probably always be a matter of contention. Many writers of Europe and
Asia in the fifteenth century, when coffee was first brought to the
attention of the people of Europe, agree on Arabia; but there is good
reason to believe the plant was brought to Arabia from Abyssinia in the
sixth century.
Once all the coffee of Arabia went to the outside world through the port
of Mocha on the eastern coast of the Red Sea. Mocha, which never raised
any coffee, is no longer of commercial importance; but its name has been
permanently attached to the coffee of this country.
_Mocha_ (_Moka_, or _Morkha_) coffee (i.e. _Coffea arabica_) is raised
principally in the vilayet of Yemen, a district of southeastern Arabia.
Yemen extends from the north, southerly along the line of the Red Sea,
nearly to the Gulf of Aden. With the exception of a narrow strip of land
along the shores of the Red Sea, the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, and the
Gulf of Aden, it is a rugged, mountainous region, in which innumerable
small valleys at high elevations are irrigated by waters from the
melting snows of the mountains.
Coffee can be successfully grown in any part of Yemen, but its
cultivation is confined to a few widely scattered districts, and the
acreage is not large. The principal coffee regions are in the mountains
between Taiz and Ibb, and between Ibb and Yerim, and Yerim and Sanaa, on
the caravan route from Taiz to Sanaa; between Zabeed and Ibb, on the
route from Taiz to Zabeed; between Hajelah and Menakha, on the route
from Hodeida to Sanaa, and in the wild mountain ranges both to the north
and south of that route; between Beit-el-Fakih and Obal; and between
Manakha and Batham to the north of Bajil. The plant does best at
elevations ranging from 3,500 to 6,500 feet.
[Illustration: WILD KAFFA COFFEE TREES NEAR ADIS ABEBA]
In the Yemen district, coffee is generally grown in small gardens. Large
plantations, as they exist in other coffee-growing countries, are not
seen in Arabia. Many of these small farms may be parts of a large estate
belonging to some rich tribal chief. The native Arabs do not use coffee
in the way it is used elsewhere in the world. They drink _kisher_, a
beverage brewed from the husks of the berry and not from the bean.
Consequently, the entire crop goes into export. But bad conditions of
trade routes, political disturbances, and small regional wars, absence
of good cultivation methods, and heavy transit taxes imposed by the
government, have combined to restrict the production of Yemen coffee.
Land for the coffee gardens is selected on hill-slopes, and is terraced
with soil and small walls of stone until it reaches up like an
amphitheater--often to a considerable height. The soil is well
fertilized. For sowing, the seeds are thoroughly dried in ashes, and
after being placed in the ground, are carefully watched, watered, and
shaded. In about a year the shrub has grown to a height of twelve or
more inches. Seedlings in that condition are set out in the gardens in
rows, about ten to thirteen feet apart. The young trees receive moisture
from neighboring wells or from irrigation ditches, and are shaded by
bananas.
At maturity the trees reach a height of ten or fifteen feet. Since they
never lose all their leaves at one time, they appear always green, and
bear at the same time flowers and fruits, some of which are still green
while others are ripe or approaching maturity. Thus, in some districts,
the trees are considered to have two or even three crops a year. All the
trees begin to bear about the end of the third year.
[Illustration: A RARE PICTURE SHOWING MOCHA COFFEE GROWING ON TERRACES
IN YEMEN, ARABIA]
CUBA. Coffee can be grown in practically every island of the West
Indies, but owing to the state of civilization in many of the lesser
islands, little is produced for international trade, excepting in
Jamaica, Guadeloupe, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad, and
Tobago. In past years a considerable quantity of good-quality coffee was
produced in Cuba, the annual export in the decade of 1840 averaging
50,000,000 pounds. Severe hurricanes, adverse legislation, the rise of
coffee-growing in Brazil, the increase in cultivation of sugar and other
more profitable crops, practically eliminated Cuba from the
international coffee-export trade.
MARTINIQUE. This is a name well known to coffee men, the world over, as
the pioneer coffee-growing country of the western hemisphere. Gabriel de
Clieu introduced the coffee plant to the island in 1723 by bringing it
through many hardships from France. For a time, coffee flourished there,
but now practically none is grown. Such coffee as bears the name
Martinique in modern trade centers is produced in Guadeloupe, and is
only shipped through Martinique.
JAMAICA. Coffee was introduced into Jamaica in 1730; and so highly was
it regarded as a desirable addition to the agricultural resources of the
island, that the British Parliament in 1732 passed a special act
providing for the encouraging and fostering of its cultivation. Later,
it became one of the great staples of the country. Disastrous floods in
1815, and the gradual exhaustion of the best lands since then, have
brought about a decline of the industry, which is now confined to a few
estates in the Blue Mountains and to scattered "settler" or peasant
cultivation in the same districts but at lower altitudes.
The tree was formerly grown at all altitudes, from sea-level to 5,000
feet; but the best height for it is about 4,500 feet. Four parishes lead
in coffee producing: Manchester, with an area of 5,045 acres; St.
Thomas, with 2,315 acres; Clarendon, with 2,172 acres; St. Andrew, with
1,584 acres. Nine other parishes that raise coffee have less than 1,000
acres each under cultivation. There were 24,865 acres devoted to coffee
in 1900. In addition, it was estimated that there were 80,000 acres
suitable for the cultivation, nearly all being owned by the government.
[Illustration: PICKING BLUE MOUNTAIN BERRIES, JAMAICA]
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. Coffee was once the leading staple in the Dominican
Republic as in the adjoining Haitian Republic; but in recent years
cacao, sugar, and tobacco have become the predominating crops. Said to
have the world's richest and most productive soil, one-half of the
republic's area is particularly suited to the cultivation of a good
grade of coffee of the highland type. But political and industrial
conditions have made for neglect of its cultivation by efficient
methods. Lack of suitable roads has also militated against the
development of the coffee industry.
In spite of many drawbacks, it is to be noted that, from the beginning
of the twentieth century, the coffee-growing area has been gradually
expanded until exports increased from less than 1,000,000 pounds to
5,029,316 pounds in 1918, although in the next two years there was a
recession in the total exports to 1,358,825 pounds in 1920.
The principal plantations are in the vicinity of the town of Moca and in
the districts of Santiago, Bani, and Barahona. Generally speaking, the
methods of cultivation in the Dominican Republic are somewhat crude as
compared with the practise in the larger countries of production in
Central America and South America.
GUADELOUPE. Guadeloupe has an area of 619 square miles, and about
one-third of this area is under cultivation. About 15,000 acres are in
coffee, giving employment to upward of 10,000 persons. The average yield
of a plantation of mature trees is about 535 pounds to the acre.
In the early years of the industry in Guadeloupe, production and export
were considerable. From old records it appears that in 1784 the exports
amounted to 7,500,000 pounds. During the closing years of the eighteenth
century the annual exports were from 6,500,000 to 8,500,000 pounds, and
in the beginning of the next century they registered about 6,000,000
pounds. Toward the middle of the nineteenth century the growing of sugar
cane overtopped that of coffee in profit, and many planters abandoned
coffee. After 1884, with the decadence of the sugar industry, coffee was
again favored, the government giving substantial encouragement by paying
bounties ranging from $15 to $19 per acre for all new coffee
plantations.
In recent years, considerable _liberica_ and _robusta_ have been planted
in place of the exhausted _arabica_.
[Illustration: COFFEE PICKERS RETURNING FROM THE FIELDS, GUADELOUPE]
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO. The islands of Trinidad and Tobago are small
factors in international coffee trading. Coffee can be grown almost any
place on the islands; but its cultivation is confined principally to the
districts of Maracas, Aripo, and North Oropouche. Both the _arabica_ and
the _liberica_ varieties are grown.
HONDURAS. Soil, surface, and climate in Honduras, as far as they relate
to the cultivation of coffee, are similar to those of the adjoining
regions of Central America. The tree grows in the uplands of the
interior, thriving best at an altitude of from 1,500 to 4,000 feet.
Scarcity of labor and insufficient means of transportation have been the
chief obstacles in the way of the large development of the industry.
The departments of Santa Barbara, Copan, Cortez, La Paz, Choluteca, and
El Paraiso have the principal plantations. The ports of shipment are
Truxillo and Puerto Cortés. Annual production in recent years has been
about 5,000,000 pounds. In 1889 the United States imported 3,322,502
pounds, but in 1915 its importations fell away to 665,912 pounds.
BRITISH HONDURAS. British Honduras has never undertaken to raise coffee
on a commercial scale despite the fact that conditions are not
unfavorable to its cultivation. It has failed to produce enough even for
domestic consumption, importing most of what it has needed. Annual
production, as recorded in recent years, has been upward of 10,000
pounds.
[Illustration: THREE-YEAR-OLD COFFEE TREES IN BLOSSOM, PANAMA]
PANAMA. Panama presents a very favorable field for the growing of
coffee. The best district is situated in the uplands of the district of
Bugaba, where vast areas of the best lands for coffee-growing exist, and
where climatic and other conditions are most favorable to its growth.
No shade is required in this country; and the only cultivation consists
of three or four cleanings a year to keep down the weeds, as no plowing,
etc., are necessary. Coffee matures from October to January. Water power
being abundant, it is used for running all machinery.
The annual output of the province of Chiriqui, which produces the bulk
of the coffee, is approximately 4,000 sacks of 100 pounds each; all of
which is produced in the Boquete district at present, as the coffee
planted in the Bugaba section is still young and unproductive. The local
supply does not meet the domestic demand; and instead of exporting, a
great deal is imported from adjoining countries, although, there is a
protective tariff of six dollars per hundred pounds.
THE GUIANAS. Coffee has had a precarious existence in the Guianas.
Plants are said to have been brought by Dutch voyagers from Amsterdam in
1718 or 1720. They flourished in the new habitat to which they were
introduced, and in 1725 were carried from Dutch Guiana into the district
of Berbice in British Guiana and into French Guiana. There the berry was
a considerable success for a time; Berbice coffee especially acquiring a
good reputation; and when Demerara was settled, coffee became a staple
of that region. Shortage of native labor, and the difficulty of
procuring cheap and capable workers from outside the country, ultimately
compelled the practical abandonment of the crop in all three sections,
Dutch, French, and British. In British Guiana it is now grown mainly for
domestic consumption, and the same is true of French Guiana, which also
imports.
From the time of its introduction, about 1718, until about 1880, the
only coffee grown in Surinam, or Dutch Guiana, was the _Coffea arabica_.
It was not a bountiful producer, and with labor scarce and unreliable,
its cultivation was expensive. Therefore experiment was made with the
_liberica_ plant. This proved to be very satisfactory, growing
luxuriantly, producing abundantly, and requiring minimum labor in care.
In 1918 some 16,000,000 pounds were produced.
ECUADOR. Though not of great commercial importance, coffee in Ecuador
grows on both the mainland and on the adjacent islands. The area planted
to coffee is estimated at 32,000 acres having an aggregate of about
8,000,000 trees. The trees blossom in December, and the picking season
is through April, May and June. Coffee ranks third in value among the
exports of the country.
PERU. Although possessed of natural coffee land and climate, little has
been done to develop the industry in Peru. A finely flavored coffee
grows at an altitude of 7,000 feet, while that grown in the lowlands
along the Pacific coast is not so desirable. Such small quantities as
are grown are cultivated in the mountain districts of Choquisongo,
Cajamarca, Perene, Paucartambo, Chaucghamayo, and Huanace. The
Pacific-coast district of Paces-mayo also grows a not unimportant crop.
BOLIVIA. Comparatively little attention is given to coffee cultivation
in Bolivia. Agricultural methods are crude, and are limited to cutting
down weeds and undergrowth twice a year. The coffee is planted in small
patches, or as hedges along the roads or around the fields of other
crops. The first crop is picked at the end of one and a half or two
years. The trees bear for fifteen to twenty years. The average yield is
from three to eight pounds per tree. The best grades of coffee are grown
at 2,000 to 6,000 feet above sea level.
Coffee is cultivated in the departments of La Paz, Cochabamba, Santa
Cruz, El Beni, and Chuquisca. In the department of Santa Cruz there are
plantations in the provinces of Sara, Velasco, Chiquitos and Cordillera.
In the Yungas and the Apolobamba districts of La Paz, its cultivation
reaches the greatest importance, but even there is not of large
proportions.
CHILE, PARAGUAY, AND ARGENTINA. Coffee is of minor, almost
insignificant, importance in the agriculture of Chile, Paraguay, and
Argentina. In Uruguay the climate is altogether unsuitable for it.
Argentina and Paraguay each have small growing districts. In the first
named, only the provinces of Salta and Jujuy have, at the latest
reports, a little more than 3,000 acres under cultivation. In Paraguay
some householders have grown coffee in their yards solely for their own
use. In the Paraguayan district of Altos, north of Asuncion, a small
group of plantations was started before the outbreak of the World War,
and produced about 300,000 pounds of coffee in a year.
CEYLON. Coffee planting in Ceylon was an important industry for a
century, until the so-called Ceylon leaf disease attacked the
plantations in 1869, and a few years later had practically destroyed all
the trees of the country. Although coffee raising has continued since
then, there has been, especially since the beginning of the twentieth
century, a steady decline in acreage. There were 4,875 acres under
cultivation in 1903, 2,433 acres in 1907, 1,389 in 1912, and 941.5 in
1919. Only 2,200 pounds were produced in 1917. However, the climate and
soil of Ceylon seem adapted to coffee culture, and the experimental
stations at Peradeniya and Anuradhapura have been experimenting in
recent years with _robusta_, _canephora_, _Ugandæ_, and a _robusta_
hybrid for the purpose of reviving the industry in the country.
Ceylon is one of the oldest coffee-growing countries, the Arabs having
experimented with it there, according to legend, long before the
Portuguese seized the island in 1505. The Dutch, who gained control in
1658, continued the cultivation, and in 1690 introduced more systematic
methods. They sent a few pounds in 1721 to Amsterdam, where the coffee
brought a higher price than Java or Mocha. However, it was not until
after the British occupied the island in 1796, that coffee growing was
carried on extensively. The first British-owned upland plantation was
started in 1825 by Sir Edward Barnes; and for more than fifty years
thereafter coffee was one of the island's leading products. An orgy of
speculation in coffee growing in Ceylon, in which £5,000,000 sterling
are said to have been invested, culminated in 1845 in the bursting of
the coffee bubble, and hundreds were ruined. The peak of the export
trade was reached in 1873, when 111,495,216 pounds of coffee were sent
out of the country. Even then, the plantations were suffering severely
from the leaf disease, which had appeared in 1869; and by 1887, the
coffee tree had practically disappeared from Ceylon. Ceylon's day in
coffee was a cycle of fifty-odd years.
[Illustration: ROBUSTA COFFEE GROWING ON THE SUZANNAH ESTATE,
COCHIN-CHINA]
FRENCH INDO-CHINA. Coffee culture in French Indo-China is a
comparatively small factor in international trade, although production
is on the increase, particularly from those plantations planted to
_robusta_, _liberica_, and _excelsa_ varieties. The average annual
export for the five-year period ended with 1918 was 516,978 pounds,
nearly all of it going to France.
The first experiments with coffee growing were begun in 1887, near Hanoi
in Tonkin. The seeds were of the _arabica_ variety, brought from
Réunion, and the production from the first years was distributed
throughout the country to foster the industry. Eventually _arabica_ was
found unsuitable to the soil and climate, and experiments were begun
with _robusta_ and other hardier types.
A survey of the industry of the country in 1916 showed that the plant
was being successfully grown in the provinces of Tonkin, Anam, and
Cochin-China, and that altogether there were about 1,000,000 trees in
bearing. The plantations are mostly in the foot-hills of the mountain
ranges or on the slopes, although a few are located near the coast line
at 1,000 feet, or even less, above sea-level.
The larger and more successful plantations follow advanced methods of
planting and cultivating, while the government maintains experimental
stations for the purpose of fostering the industry. It is believed that
French Indo-China in coming years will assume an important position in
the coffee trade of the world, particularly as a source of supply for
France.
FEDERATED MALAY STATES, INCLUDING STRAITS SETTLEMENTS. Rubber has been
the chief cause of the decline of coffee industry in the Federated Malay
States. Since the closing years of the nineteenth century coffee has
been steadily on the downward path in acreage and production, with the
possible exception of parts of Straits Settlements, which in 1918
exported, mostly to England, some 3,500,000 pounds of good grade coffee.
The other sections of the federation shipped less than 1,000,000 pounds.
In the early days, planters of the Malay Peninsula knew little about
proper methods of cultivating, and depended mostly upon what they
learned of the practises in Ceylon, which, unfortunately for them, were
not at all suited to the Malay country. They secured their best crops
from lowlands where peaty soil prevailed, and eventually all the coffee
grown on the peninsula came from such regions.
_Liberica_ is mostly favored, and is grown with some success as an
inter-crop with cocoanuts and rubber. The _robusta_ variety has also
been introduced, but does not seem to do as well as the _liberica_.
Between 2,300 and 2,600 acres, according to recent returns, have been
under coffee as a catch-crop with cocoanuts, out of a total of 40,000
acres in cocoanut estates. One planter has been reported as making quite
a success with this method of inter-cropping for coffee, but it is not
generally approved.
There has been a general decline in acreage, product, and exports since
the closing years of the nineteenth century, until now the industry is
regarded as practically at a stand-still and likely so to remain as long
as rubber shall continue to hold the commercially high position to which
it has attained. Unsatisfactory prices realized for the crop, poor
growth of the trees in some localities, and the gradual weakening of the
trees under rubber as they mature, are offered as the principal
explanations of this decrease in acreage. Nearly all the Malay crop in
recent years has been grown in Selangor, though Negri Sembilan, Pahang,
and Perak continue as factors in the trade.
[Illustration: COFFEE TREES OF THE BOURBON VARIETY, FRENCH INDO-CHINA]
AUSTRALIA. Although Australia is a prospective coffee-growing country of
large natural possibilities, the _Australian Year Book_ for 1921 states
that Queensland is the one state in which experiments have been tried,
and that in 1919-20 there were only twenty-four acres under cultivation.
Queensland soils are of volcanic origin, exceptionally rich, and
support trees that are vigorous and prolific with a bean of fine
quality. The _arabica_ is chiefly cultivated, and the trees can be
successfully grown on the plains at sea-level as well as up to a height
of 1,500 or 2,000 feet. The trees mature earlier than in some other
countries. Planted in January, they frequently blossom in December of
the next year, or a month later, and yield a small crop in July or
August; that is, in about two years and a half from the time of
planting. The bean closely resembles the choice Blue Mountain coffee of
Jamaica. For coffee cultivation the labor cost is almost prohibitive.
[Illustration: PICKING COFFEE ON A NORTH QUEENSLAND PLANTATION]
As much as fifteen hundred-weight of beans per acre have been gathered
from trees in North Queensland; and for years the average was ten
hundred-weight per acre. After thirty years of cultivation, no signs of
disease have appeared. At late as 1920, the government was proposing to
make advances of fourteen cents a pound upon coffee in the parchment to
encourage the development of the industry to a point where it would be
possible for local coffee growers to capture at least the bulk of the
commonwealth's import coffee trade of 2,605,240 pounds.
Coffee grows well in most all the islands of the Pacific Ocean, and in
some of them, as in the Philippines and Hawaii, the industry in past
years, reached considerable importance.
HAWAII. Coffee has been grown in Hawaii since 1825, from plants brought
from Brazil. It has also been said that seed was brought by Vancouver,
the British navigator, on his Pacific exploration voyage, 1791-94. Not,
however, until 1845 was an official record made of the crop, which was
then 248 pounds. The first plantations, started on the low levels, near
the sea, did not do well; and it was not until the trees were planted at
elevations of from 1,000 to 3,000 feet above sea-level that better
returns were obtained.
Coffee is grown on all the islands of the group, but nowhere to any
great extent except on Hawaii, which produces ninety-five percent of the
entire crop. Next in importance, though far behind, is the island of
Oahu. On Hawaii there are four principal coffee districts, Kona,
Hamakua, Puna, and Olaa. About four-fifths of the total output of the
islands is produced in Kona. At one time there were considerable coffee
areas in Maui and Kauai, but sugar cane eventually there took the place
of coffee.
[Illustration: COFFEE IN BLOSSOM, CAPTAIN COOK COFFEE COMPANY ESTATE,
KEALAKEKUA, KONA, HAWAII]
The Kona coffee district extends for many miles along the western slope
of the island of Hawaii and around famous Kealakekua Bay. The soil is
volcanic, and even rocky; but coffee trees flourish surprisingly well
among the rocks, and are said to bear a bean of superior quality.
Coffee trees in Kona are planted principally in the open, though
sometimes they are shaded by the native _kukui_ trees. They are grown
from seed in nurseries; and the seedlings, when one year old, are
transplanted in regular lines nine feet apart. In two years a small crop
is gathered, yielding from five to twelve bags of cleaned coffee per
acre. At three years of age the trees produce from eight to twenty bags
of cleaned coffee per acre, and from that time they are fully matured.
The ripening season is between September and January, and there are two
principal pickings. Many of the trees are classed as wild; that is, they
are not topped, and are cultivated in an irregular manner and are poorly
cared for; but they yield 700 or 800 pounds per acre. The fruit ripens
very uniformly, and is picked easily and at slight expense.
It is calculated that in the Hawaiian group more than 250,000 acres of
good coffee land are available and about 200,000 acres more of fair
quality. Comparatively little of this possible acreage has been put to
use. According to the census of 1889, there were then 6,451 acres
devoted to coffee, having, young and old, 3,225,743 bearing trees. The
yield, in that census year, was 2,297,000 pounds, of which 2,112,650
pounds were credited to Hawaii, the small remainder coming from Maui,
Oahu, Kauai, and Molokai.
A blight in 1855-56 set back the industry, many plantations being ruined
and then given over to sugar cane. After the blight had disappeared, the
plantations were re-established, and prosperity continued for years.
Following the American occupation of the islands in 1898, came another
period of depression. With the loss of the protective tariff that had
existed, prices fell to an unremunerativte figure; and the more
profitable sugar cane was taken up again. After 1912, the increased
demand for coffee, with higher prices, led again to hopes for the future
of the industry. Planting was encouraged; and it has been demonstrated
that from lands well selected and intelligently cultivated it is
possible to have a yield of from 1,200 to 2,100 pounds per acre.
Improvements have also been made in pulping and milling facilities. Many
of the plantations are cultivated by Japanese labor.
[Illustration: COFFEE GROWING UNDER SHADE, HAMAKUA, H.I.]
Exports of coffee from Hawaii to the principal countries of the world in
1920 were 2,573,300 pounds.
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. Spanish missionaries from Mexico are said to have
carried the coffee plant to the Philippine Islands in the latter part of
the eighteenth century. At first it was cultivated in the province of La
Laguna; but afterward other provinces, notably Batangas and Cavite, took
it up; and in a short time the industry was one of the most important in
the islands. The coffee was of the _arabica_ variety. In the middle of
the eighteenth century, and after, the industry had a position of
importance; several provinces produced profitable crops that contributed
much to the wealth of the communities where the berry was cultivated. In
those days the city of Yipa was an important trading center. In the
period of its prime Philippine coffee enjoyed fine repute, especially in
Spain, Great Britain, and China (at Hong Kong), those three countries
being the largest consumers. At one time--in 1883 and 1884--the annual
export was 16,000,000 pounds, which demonstrates the importance of the
industry at the peak of its prosperity. The leaf blight appeared on the
island about 1889, causing destruction from which there has not yet been
complete recovery. The export of 3,086 pounds in 1917 shows the depths
into which the industry had fallen.
The Bureau of Agriculture at Manila announced in 1915 that an effort was
to be made to re-habilitate the coffee industry of the islands. Nothing
came of the effort, which died a-borning. Since then, several attempts
to introduce disease-resisting varieties of coffee from Java have failed
because of lack of interest on the part of the natives.
Despite the misfortunes that have overwhelmed it in the past and are now
retarding its growth, it is still believed that the industry in these
islands may be re-habilitated. Conditions of soil and climate are
favorable; land and labor are cheap, abundant, and dependable: railroads
run into the best coffee regions, and good cart roads are in process of
construction. Some plantations of consequence are still in existence,
and serious consideration is being given to their development and to
increasing their number.
[Illustration: THE COFFEE TREE THRIVES IN THE LAVA SOIL OF SOUTH KONA,
ISLAND OF HAWAII]
GUAM. Coffee is one of the commonest wild plants on the little island of
Guam. It grows around the houses like shade trees or flowering shrubs,
and nearly every family cultivates a small patch. Climate and soil are
favorable to it; and it flourishes, with abundant crops, from the
sea-level to the tops of the highest hills. The plants are set in
straight rows, from three and a half to seven feet apart, and are shaded
by banana trees or by cocoanut leaves stuck in the ground. There is no
production for export, scarcely enough for home consumption.
[Illustration: COFFEE PLANTATION NEAR SAGADA, BONTOC PROVINCE, P.I.]
OTHER PACIFIC ISLANDS. Other islands of the Pacific do not loom large in
coffee growing, though New Caledonia gives promise as a producer,
exporting 1,248,024 pounds in 1916, most of which was _robusta_. Tahiti
produces a fair coffee, but in no commercial quantity. In the Samoan
group there are plantations, small in number, in size, and in amount of
production. Several islands of the Fiji group are said to be well
adapted to coffee, but little is grown there and none for export.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: OWNER'S RESIDENCE ADJOINING DRYING GROUNDS ON ONE OF THE
LARGE ESTATES]
[Illustration: DRYING GROUNDS, FAZENDA SANTA ADELAIDE, RIBEIRAO PRETO]
[Illustration: COFFEE PREPARATION IN SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL]
CHAPTER XXI
PREPARING GREEN COFFEE FOR MARKET
_Early Arabian methods of preparation--How primitive devices were
replaced by modern methods--A chronological story of the
development of scientific plantation machinery, and the part played
by British and American inventors--The marvelous coffee package,
one of the most ingenious in all nature--How coffee is
harvested--Picking--Preparation by the dry and the wet
methods--Pulping--Fermentation and washing--Drying--Hulling; or
peeling, and polishing--Sizing, or grading--Preparation methods of
different countries_
La Roque[316], in his description of the ancient coffee culture, and the
preparation methods as followed in Yemen, says that the berries were
permitted to dry on the trees. When the outer covering began to shrivel,
the trees were shaken, causing the fully matured fruits to drop upon
cloths spread to receive them. They were next exposed to the sun on
drying-mats, after which they were husked by means of wooden or stone
rollers. The beans were given a further drying in the sun, and then were
submitted to a winnowing process, for which large fans were used.
_Development of Plantation Machinery_
The primitive methods of the original Arab planters were generally
followed by the Dutch pioneers, and later by the French, with slight
modifications. As the cultivation spread, necessity for more effective
methods of handling the ripened fruit mothered inventions that soon
began to transform the whole aspect of the business. Probably the first
notable advance was in curing, when the West Indian process, or wet
method, of cleaning the berries was evolved.
About the time that Brazil began the active cultivation of coffee,
William Panter was granted the first English patent on a "mill for
husking coffee." This was in 1775. James Henckel followed with an
English patent, granted in 1806, on a coffee drier, "an invention
communicated to him by a certain foreigner." The first American to enter
the lists was Nathan Reed of Belfast, Me., who in 1822 was granted a
United States patent on a coffee huller. Roswell Abbey obtained a United
States patent on a huller in 1825; and Zenos Bronson, of Jasper County,
Ga., obtained one on another huller in 1829. In the next few years many
others followed.
John Chester Lyman, in 1834, was granted an English patent on a coffee
huller employing circular wooden disks, fitted with wire teeth. Isaac
Adams and Thomas Ditson of Boston brought out improved hullers in 1835;
and James Meacock of Kingston, Jamaica, patented in England, in 1845, a
self-contained machine for pulping, dressing, and sorting coffee.
William McKinnon began, in 1840, the manufacture of coffee plantation
machinery at the Spring Garden Iron Works, founded by him in 1798 in
Aberdeen, Scotland. He died in 1873; but the business continues as Wm.
McKinnon & Co., Ltd.
About 1850 John Walker, one of the pioneer English inventors of
coffee-plantation machinery, brought out in Ceylon his cylinder pulper
for Arabian coffee. The pulping surface was made of copper, and was
pierced with a half-moon punch that raised the cut edges into half
circles.
The next twenty years witnessed some of the most notable advances in the
development of machinery for plantation treatment, and served to
introduce the inventions of several men whose names will ever be
associated with the industry.
John Gordon & Co. began the manufacture in London of the line of
plantation machinery still known around the world as "Gordon make" in
1850; and John Gordon was granted an English patent on his improved
coffee pulper in 1859.
Robert Bowman Tennent obtained English (1852) and United States (1853)
patents on a two-cylinder pulper.
George L. Squier began the manufacture of plantation machinery in
Buffalo, N.Y., in 1857. He was active in the business until 1893, and
died in 1910. The Geo. L. Squier Manufacturing Co. still continues as
one of the leading American manufacturers of coffee-plantation
machinery.
Marcus Mason, an American mechanical engineer in San José, Costa Rica,
invented (1860) a coffee pulper and cleaner which became the foundation
stone of the extensive plantation-machinery business of Marcus Mason &
Co., established in 1873 at Worcester, Mass.
[Illustration: WALKER'S ORIGINAL DISK PULPER, 1860
Much favored in Ceylon and India]
John Walker was granted (1860) an English patent on a disk pulper in
which the copper pulping surface was punched, or knobbed, by a blind
punch that raised rows of oval knobs but did not pierce the sheet, and
so left no sharp edges. During Ceylon's fifty years of coffee
production, the Walker machines played an important part in the
industry. They are still manufactured by Walker, Sons & Co., Ltd., of
Colombo, and are sold to other producing countries.
Alexius Van Gulpen began the manufacture of a green-coffee-grading
machine at Emmerich, Germany, in 1860.
Following Newell's United States patents of 1857-59, sixteen other
patents were issued on various types of coffee-cleaning machines, some
designed for plantation use, and some for treating the beans on arrival
in the consuming countries.
James Henry Thompson, of Hoboken, and John Lidgerwood were granted, in
1864, an English patent on a coffee-hulling machine. William Van Vleek
Lidgerwood, American chargé d'affaires at Rio de Janeiro, was granted an
English patent on a coffee hulling and cleaning machine in 1866. The
name Lidgerwood has long been familiar to coffee planters. The
Lidgerwood Manufacturing Co., Ltd., has its headquarters in London, with
factory in Glasgow. Branch offices are maintained at Rio de Janeiro,
Campinas, and in other cities in coffee-growing countries.
[Illustration: EARLY ENGLISH COFFEE PEELER
Largely used in India and Ceylon]
Probably the name most familiar to coffee men in connection with
plantation methods is Guardiola. It first appears in the chronological
record in 1872, when J. Guardiola, of Chocola, Guatemala, was granted
several United States patents on machines for pulping and drying coffee.
Since then, "Guardiola" has come to mean a definite type of rotary
drying machine that--after the original patent expired--was manufactured
by practically all the leading makers of plantation machinery. José
Guardiola obtained additional United States patents on coffee hullers in
1886.
[Illustration: GROUP OF ENGLISH CYLINDER COFFEE-PULPING MACHINES]
William Van Vleek Lidgerwood, Morristown, N.J., was granted an English
patent on an improved coffee pulper in 1875.
Several important cleaning and grading machinery patents were granted by
the United States (1876-1878) to Henry B. Stevens, who assigned them to
the Geo. L. Squier Manufacturing Co., Buffalo, N.Y. One of them was on a
separator, in which the coffee beans were discharged from the hopper in
a thin stream upon an endless carrier, or apron, arranged at such an
inclination that the round beans would roll by force of gravity down the
apron, while the flat beans would be carried to the top.
C.F. Hargreaves, of Rio de Janeiro, was granted an English patent on
machinery for hulling, polishing, and separating coffee, in 1879.
The first German patent on a coffee drying apparatus was granted to
Henry Scolfield, of Guatemala, in 1880.
In 1885 Evaristo Conrado Engelberg of Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil,
invented an improved coffee huller which, three years later, was
patented in the United States. The Engelberg Huller Co. of Syracuse,
N.Y., was organized the same year (1888) to make and to sell Engelberg
machines.
Walker Sons & Co., Ltd., began, in 1886, experimenting in Ceylon with a
Liberian disk pulper that was not fully perfected until twelve years
later.
Another name, that has since become almost as well known as Guardiola,
appears in the record in 1891. It is that of O'Krassa. In that year
R.F.E. O'Krassa of Antigua, Guatemala, was granted an English patent on
a coffee pulper. Additional patents on washing, hulling, drying, and
separating machines were issued to Mr. O'Krassa in England and in the
United States in 1900, 1908, 1911, 1912, and 1913.
The Fried. Krupp A.G. Grusonwerk, Magdeburg-Buckau, Germany, began the
manufacture of coffee plantation machines about 1892. Among others it
builds coffee pulpers and hulling and polishing machines of the Anderson
(Mexican) and Krull (Brazilian) types.
Additional United States patents were granted in 1895 to Marcus Mason,
assignor to Marcus Mason & Co., New York, on machines for pulping and
polishing coffee. Douglas Gordon assigned patents on a coffee pulper and
a coffee drier to Marcus Mason & Co. in 1904-05.
The names of Jules Smout, a Swiss, and Don Roberto O'Krassa, of
Guatemala, are well known to coffee planters the world over because of
their combined peeling and polishing machines.
The Huntley Manufacturing Co., Silver Creek, N.Y., began in 1896 the
manufacture of the Monitor line of coffee-grading-and-cleaning machines.
_The Marvelous Coffee Package_
It is doubtful if in all nature there is a more cunningly devised food
package than the fruit of the coffee tree. It seems as if Good Mother
Nature had said: "This gift of Heaven is too precious to put up in any
ordinary parcel. I shall design for it a casket worthy of its divine
origin. And the casket shall have an inner seal that shall safeguard it
from enemies, and that shall preserve its goodness for man until the day
when, transported over the deserts and across the seas, it shall be
broken open to be transmuted by the fires of friendship, and made to
yield up its aromatic nectar in the Great Drink of Democracy."
To this end she caused to grow from the heart of the jasmine-like
flower, that first herald of its coming, a marvelous berry which, as it
ripens, turns first from green to yellow, then to reddish, to deep
crimson, and at last to a royal purple.
[Illustration: SPECIMENS OF COPPER COVERS FOR PULPER CYLINDERS
1--For Arabian coffee (_Coffea arabica_). 2--For Liberian coffee
(_Coffea liberica_). 3--Also for Arabian. 4--For _Coffea canephora_.
5--For _Coffea robusta_. 6--For larger Arabian, and for _Coffea
Maragogipe_.]
The coffee fruit is very like a cherry, though somewhat elongated and
having in its upper end a small umbilicus. But mark with what ingenuity
the package has been constructed! The outer wrapping is a thin,
gossamer-like skin which encloses a soft pulp, sweetish to the taste,
but of a mucilaginous consistency. This pulp in turn is wrapped about
the inner-seal--called the parchment, because of its tough texture. The
parchment encloses the magic bean in its last wrapping, a delicate
silver-colored skin, not unlike fine spun silk or the sheerest of tissue
papers. And this last wrapping is so tenacious, so true to its
guardianship function, that no amount of rough treatment can dislodge it
altogether; for portions of it cling to the bean even into the roasting
and grinding processes.
[Illustration: DRYING GROUNDS, PULPING HOUSE, AND FERMENTATION VATS,
BOA VISTA. BRAZIL]
[Illustration: PULPING HOUSE AND FERMENTATION TANKS, COSTA RICA]
[Illustration: COFFEE PREPARATION IN CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA]
[Illustration: GRANADA UNPULPED COFFEE SEPARATOR
Shown in combination with a Guatemala coffee pulper]
Coffee is said to be "in the husk," or "in the parchment," when the
whole fruit is dried; and it is called "hulled coffee" when it has been
deprived of its hull and peel. The matter forming the fruit, called the
coffee berry, covers two thin, hard, oval seed vessels held together,
one to the other, by their flat sides. These seed vessels, when broken
open, contain the raw coffee beans of commerce. They are usually of a
roundish oval shape, convex on the outside, flat inside, marked
longitudinally in the center of the flat side with a deep incision, and
wrapped in the thin pellicle known as the silver skin. When one of the
two seeds aborts, the remaining one acquires a greater size, and fills
the interior of the fruit, which in that case, of course, has but one
cellule. This abortion is common in the _arabica_ variety, and produces
a bean formerly called _gragé_ coffee, but now more commonly known as
peaberry, or male berry.
The various coverings of the coffee beans are almost always removed on
the plantations in the producing countries. Properly to prepare the raw
beans, it is necessary to remove the four coverings--the outer skin, the
sticky pulp, the parchment, or husk, and the closely adhering silver
skin.
There are two distinct methods of treating the coffee fruits, or
"cherries." One process, the one that until recent years was in general
use throughout the world, and is still in many producing countries, is
known as the dry method. The coffee prepared in this way is sometimes
called "common," "ordinary," or "natural," to distinguish it from the
product that has been cleaned by the wet or washed method. The wet
method, or, as it is sometimes designated, the "West Indian process"
(W.I.P.) is practised on all the large modern plantations that have a
sufficient supply of water.
In the wet process, the first step is called pulping; the second is
fermentation and washing; the third is drying; the fourth is hulling or
peeling; and the last, sizing or grading. In the dry process, the first
step is drying; the second hulling; and the last, sizing or grading.
[Illustration: HAND-POWER DOUBLE-DISK PULPER]
_Harvesting_
The coffee cherry ripens about six to seven months after the tree has
flowered, or blossomed; and becomes a deep purplish-crimson color. It is
then ready for picking. The ripening season varies throughout the world,
according to climate and altitude. In the state of São Paulo, Brazil,
the harvesting season lasts from May to September; while in Java, where
three crops are produced annually, harvesting is almost a continuous
process throughout the year. In Colombia the harvesting seasons are
March and April, and November and December. In Guatemala the crops are
gathered from October through December; in Venezuela, from November
through March. In Mexico the coffee is harvested from November to
January; in Haiti the harvest extends from November to March; in Arabia,
from September to March; in Abyssinia, from September through November.
In Uganda, Africa, there are two main crops, one ripening in March and
the other in September, and picking is carried on during practically
every month except December and January. In India the fruit is ready for
harvesting from October to January.
[Illustration: TANDEM COFFEE PULPER OF ENGLISH MAKE
Being a combination of a Bon-Accord-Valencia pulper with a Bon-Accord
repassing machine]
_Picking_
The general practise throughout the world has been to hand-pick the
fruit; although in some countries the cherries are allowed to become
fully ripe on the trees, and to fall to the ground. The introduction of
the wet method of preparation, indeed, has made it largely unnecessary
to hand-pick crops; and the tendency seems to be away from this practise
on the larger plantations. If the berries are gathered promptly after
dropping, the beans are not injured, and the cost of harvesting is
reduced.
The picking season is a busy time on a large plantation. All hands join
in the work--men, women and children; for it must be rushed. Over-ripe
berries shrink and dry up. The pickers, with baskets slung over their
shoulders, walk between the rows, stripping the berries from the trees,
using ladders to reach the topmost branches, and sometimes even taking
immature fruit in their haste to expedite the work. About thirty pounds
is considered a fair day's work under good conditions. As the baskets
are filled, they are emptied at a "station" in that particular unit of
the plantation; or, in some cases, directly into wagons that keep pace
with the pickers. The coffee is freed as much as possible of sticks,
leaves, etc., and is then conveyed to the preparation grounds.
A space of several acres is needed for the various preparation processes
on the larger plantations; the plant including concrete-surfaced drying
grounds, large fermentation tanks, washing vats, mills, warehouses,
stables, and even machine shops. In Mexico this place is known as the
_beneficio_.
_Washed and Unwashed Coffee_
Where water is plenty, the ripe coffee cherries are fed by a stream of
water into a pulping machine which breaks the outer skins, permitting
the pulpy matter enveloping the beans to be loosened and carried away in
further washings. It is this wet separation of the sticky pulp from the
beans, instead of allowing it to dry on them, to be removed later with
the parchment in the hulling operation, that makes the distinction
between washed and unwashed coffees. Where water is scarce the coffees
are unwashed.
Either method being well done, does washing improve the strength and
flavor? Opinions differ. The soil, altitude, climatic influences, and
cultivation methods of a country give its coffee certain distinctive
drinking qualities. Washing immensely improves the appearance of the
bean; it also reduces curing costs. Generally speaking, washed coffees
will always command a premium over coffees dried in the pulp.
[Illustration: Costa Rica Vertical Coffee Washer]
[Illustration: Continuous Working Horizontal Coffee Washer]
Whether coffee is washed or not, it has to be dried; and there is a kind
of fermentation that goes on during washing and drying, about which
coffee planters have differing ideas, just as tea planters differ over
the curing of tea leaves. Careful scientific study is needed to
determine how much, if any, effect this fermentation has on the ultimate
cup value.
_Preparation by the Dry Method_
The dry method of preparing the berries is not only the older method,
but is considered by some operators as providing a distinct advantage
over the wet process, since berries of different degrees of ripeness can
be handled at the same time. However, the success of this method is
dependent largely on the continuance of clear warm weather over quite a
length of time, which can not always be counted on.
In this process the berries are spread in a thin layer on open drying
grounds, or barbecues, often having cement or brick surfaces. The
berries are turned over several times a day in order to permit the sun
and wind thoroughly to dry all portions. The sun-drying process lasts
about three weeks; and after the first three days of this period, the
berries must be protected from dews and rains by covering them with
tarpaulins, or by raking them into heaps under cover. If the berries are
not spread out, they heat, and the silver skin sticks to the coffee
bean, and frequently discolors it. When thoroughly dry, the berries are
stored, unless the husks (outer skin and inner parchment) are to be
removed at once. Hot air, steam, and other artificial drying methods
take the place of natural sun-drying on some plantations.
In the dry method, the husks are removed either by hand (threshing and
pounding in a mortar, on the smaller plantations) or by specially
constructed machinery, known as hulling machines.
[Illustration: Cobán Pulper in Tachira, Venezuela]
_The Wet Method--Pulping_
The wet method of preparation is the more modern form, and is generally
practised on the larger plantations that have a sufficient supply of
water, and enough money to instal the quite extensive amount of
machinery and equipment required. It is generally considered that
washing results in a better grade of bean.
In this method the cherries are sometimes thrown into tanks full of
water to soak about twenty-four hours, so as to soften the outer skins
and underlying pulp to a condition that will make them easily removable
by the pulping machine--the idea being to rub away the pulp by friction
without crushing the beans.
On the larger plantations, however, the coffee cherries are dumped into
large concrete receiving tanks, from which they are carried the same day
by streams of running water directly into the hoppers of the pulping
machines.
At least two score of different makes of pulping machines are in use in
the various coffee-growing countries. Pulpers are made in various sizes,
from the small hand-operated machine to the large type driven by power;
and in two general styles--cylinder, and disk.
The cylinder pulper, the latest style--suggesting a huge
nutmeg-grater--consists of a rotary cylinder surrounded with a copper or
brass cover punched with bulbs. These bulbs differ in shape according to
the species, or variety, of coffee to be treated--_arabica_, _liberica_,
_robusta_, _canephora_, or what not. The cylinder rotates against a
breast with pulping edges set at an angle. The pulping is effected by
the rubbing action of the copper cover against the edges, or ribs, of
the breast. The cherries are subjected to a rubbing and rolling motion,
in the course of which the two parchment-covered beans contained in the
majority of the cherries become loosened. The pulp itself is carried by
the cover and is discharged through a pulp shoot, while the pulped
coffee is delivered through holes on the breast. Cylinder machines vary
in capacity from 400 pounds (hand power) to 4,800 pounds (motive power)
per hour.
Some cylinder pulpers are double, being equipped with rotary screens or
oscillating sieves, that segregate the imperfectly pulped cherries so
that they may be put through again. Pulpers are also equipped with
attachments that automatically move the imperfectly pulped material over
into a repassing machine for another rubbing. Others have attachments
partially to crush the cherries before pulping.
The breasts in cylinder machines are usually made with removable steel
ribs; but in Brazil, Nicaragua, and other countries, where, owing to the
short season and scarcity of labor, the planters have to pick,
simultaneously, green, ripe, and over-ripe (dry) cherries, rubber
breasts are used.
[Illustration: NIAGARA POWER COFFEE HULLER]
[Illustration: MCKINNON'S GUARDIOLA COFFEE DRIER]
[Illustration: THE SQUIER-GUARDIOLA COFFEE DRIER, WITH DIRECT-FIRE
HEATER]
[Illustration: BRITISH AND AMERICAN COFFEE DRIERS--GUARDIOLA SYSTEM
There are numerous makes of coffee driers based upon the original
invention of José Guardiola of Chocola, Guatemala. In the two
illustrated above both direct-fire heat and steam heat may be utilized]
The disk pulper (the earliest type, having been in use more than
seventy years) is the style most generally used in the Dutch East Indies
and in some parts of Mexico. The results are the same as those obtained
with the cylindrical pulper. The disk machine is made with one, two,
three, or four vertical iron disks, according to the capacity desired.
The disks are covered on both sides with a copper plate of the same
shape, and punched with blind punches. The pulping operation takes place
between the rubbing action of the blind punches, or bulbs, on the copper
plates and the lateral pulping bars fitted to the side cheeks. As in the
cylinder pulper, the distance between the surface of the bulbs and the
pulping bar may be adjusted to allow of any clearance that may be
required, according to the variety of coffee to be treated.
[Illustration: ANOTHER AMERICAN GUARDIOLA DRIER]
Disk pulpers vary in capacity from 1,200 pounds to 14,000 pounds of ripe
cherry coffee per hour. They, too, are made in combinations employing
cylindrical separators, shaking sieves, and repassing pulpers, for
completing the pulping of all unpulped or partially pulped cherries.
_Fermentation and Washing_
The next step in the process consists in running the pulped cherries
into cisterns, or fermentation tanks, filled with water, for the purpose
of removing such pulp as was not removed in the pulping machine. The
saccharine matter is loosened by fermentation in from twenty-four to
thirty-two hours. The mass is kept stirred up for a short time; and, in
general practise, the water is drawn off from above, the light pulp
floating at the top being removed at the same time. The same tanks are
often used for washing, but a better practise is to have separate tanks.
Some planters permit the pulped coffee to ferment in water. This is
called the wet fermentation process. Others drain off the water from the
tanks and conduct the fermenting operation in a semi-dry state, called
the dry fermentation process.
The coffee bean, when introduced into the fermentation tanks, is
enclosed in a parchment shell made slimy by its closely adhering
saccharine coat. After fermentation, which not only loosens the
remaining pulp but also softens the membranous covering, the beans are
given a final washing, either in washing tanks or by being run through
mechanical washers. The type of washing machine generally used consists
of a cylindrical tub having a vertical spindle fitted with a number of
stirrers, or arms, which, in rotating, stir and lift up the parchment
coffee. In another type, the cylinder is horizontal; but the operation
is similar.
_Drying_
The next step in preparation is drying. The coffee, which is still "in
the parchment," but is now known as washed coffee, is spread out thinly
on a drying ground, as in the dry method. However, if the weather is
unsuitable or can not be depended upon to remain fair for the necessary
length of time, there are machines which can be used to dry the coffee
satisfactorily. On some plantations, the drying is started in the open
and finished by machine. The machines dry the coffee in twenty-four
hours, while ten days are required by the sun.
[Illustration: THE SMOUT PEELER AND POLISHER]
The object of the drying machine is to dry the parchment of the coffee
so that it may be removed as readily as the skin on a peanut; and this
object is achieved in the most approved machines by keeping a hot
current of air stirring through the beans. One of the best-liked types,
the Guardiola, resembles the cylinder of a coffee-roasting machine. It
is made of perforated steel plates in cylinder form, and is carried on a
hollow shaft through which the hot air is circulated by a pressure fan.
The beans are rotated in the revolving cylinder; and as the hot air
strikes the wet coffee, it creates a steam that passes out through the
perforations of the cylinder. Within the cylinder are compartments
equipped with winged plates, or ribs, that keep the coffee constantly
stirred up to facilitate the drying process. Another favorite is the
O'Krassa. It is constructed on the principle just described, but differs
in detail of construction from the Guardiola, and is able to dry its
contents a few hours quicker. Hot air, steam, and electric heat are all
employed in the various makes of coffee driers. A temperature from 65°
to 85° centigrade is maintained during the drying process.
[Illustration: O'KRASSA'S COFFEE DRIER COMBINED WITH DIRECT-FIRE HEATER]
When thoroughly dry, the parchment can be crumbled between the fingers,
and the bean within is too hard to be dented by finger nail or teeth.
_Hulling, Peeling, and Polishing_
The last step in the preparation process is called hulling or peeling,
both words accurately describing the purpose of the operation. Some
husking machines for hulling or peeling parchment coffee are polishers
as well. This work may be done on the plantation or at the port of
shipment just before the coffee is shipped abroad. Sometimes the coffee
is exported in parchment, and is cleaned in the country of consumption;
but practically all coffee entering the United States arrives without
its parchment.
[Illustration: THE SMOUT PEELER AND POLISHER, WITH CYLINDER OPEN SHOWING
CONE]
Peeling machines, more accurately named hullers, work on the principle
of rubbing the beans between a revolving inner cylinder and an outer
covering of woven wire. Machines of this type vary in construction. Some
have screw-like inner cylinders, or turbines, others having plain
cone-shaped cores on which are knobs and ribs that rub the beans against
one another and the outer shell. Practically all types have sieve or
exhaust-fan attachments, which draw the loosened parchment and silver
skin into one compartment, while the cleaned beans pass into another.
[Illustration: KRULL HULLING MACHINE (German)]
[Illustration: ANDERSON HULLING MACHINE (German)]
[Illustration: EUREKA SEPARATOR AND GRADER (American)]
[Illustration: CARACOLILLO (PEABERRY) SEPARATOR (American)]
[Illustration: ENGELBERG HULLER AND SEPARATOR (American)]
[Illustration: THE AMERICAN COFFEE HULLER AND POLISHER]
[Illustration: WELL KNOWN AMERICAN AND GERMAN HULLING AND SEPARATING
MACHINES]
Polishers of various makes are sometimes used just to remove the silver
skin and to give the beans a special polish. Some countries demand a
highly polished coffee; and to supply this demand, the beans are sent
through another huller having a phosphor-bronze cylinder and cone. Much
Guadeloupe coffee is prepared in this way, and is known as _café
bonifieur_ from the fact that the polishing machine is called in
Guadeloupe the _bonifieur_ (improver). It is also called _café de luxe_.
Coffee that has not received the extra polish is described as
_habitant_; while coffee in the parchment is known as _café en parché_.
Extra polished coffee is much in demand in the London, Hamburg, and
other European markets. A favorite machine for producing this kind of
coffee is the Smout combined peeler and polisher, the invention of Jules
Smout, a Swiss. Don Roberto O'Krassa also has produced a highly
satisfactory combined peeler and polisher.
For hulling dry cherry coffee there are several excellent makes of
machines. In one style, the hulling takes place between a rotating disk
and the casing of the machine. In another, it takes place between a
rotary drum covered with a steel plate punched with vertical bulbs, and
a chilled iron hulling-plate with pyramidal teeth cast on the plate.
Both are adjustable to different varieties of coffee. In still another
type of machine, the hulling takes place between steel ribs on an
internal cylinder, and an adjustable knife, or hulling blade, in front
of the machine.
[Illustration: EL MONARCA COFFEE CLASSIFIER]
_Sizing or Grading_
The coffee bean is now clean, the processes described in the foregoing
having removed the outer skin, the saccharine pulp, the parchment, and
the silver skin. This is the end of the cleaning operations; but there
are two more steps to be taken before the coffee is ready for the trade
of the world--sizing and hand-sorting. These two operations are of great
importance; since on them depends, to a large extent, the price the
coffee will bring in the market.
[Illustration: Old rope-drive transmission on Finca Ona.]
[Illustration: Hydro-electric power plant on Finca Ona.
HYDRO-ELECTRIC INSTALLATION ON A GUATEMALA FINCA]
Sizing, or grading by sizes, is done in modern commercial practise by
machines that automatically separate and distribute the different beans
according to size and form. In principle, the beans are carried across a
series of sieves, each with perforations varying in size from the
others; the beans passing through the holes of corresponding sizes. The
majority of the machines are constructed to separate the beans into five
or more grades, the principal grades being triage, third flats, second
flats, first flats, and first and second peaberries. Some are designed
to handle "elephant" and "mother" sizes. The grades have local
nomenclature in the various countries.
After grading, the coffee is picked over by hand to remove the faulty
and discolored beans that it is almost impossible to remove thoroughly
by machine. The higher grades of coffee are often double-picked; that
is, picked over twice. When this is done on a large scale, the beans are
generally placed on a belt, or platform, that moves at a regulated speed
before a line of women and children, who pick out the undesirable beans
as they pass on the moving belt. There are small machines of this type
built for one person, who operates the belt mechanism by means of a
treadle.
_Preparation in the Leading Countries_
The foregoing description tells in general terms the story of the most
approved methods of harvesting, shelling, and cleaning the coffee beans.
The following paragraphs will describe those features of the processes
that are peculiar to the more important large producing countries and
that differ in details or in essentials from the methods just outlined.
_In the Western Hemisphere_
BRAZIL. The operation of some of the large plantations in Brazil, a
number of which have more than a million trees, requires a large number
and a great variety of preparation machines and equipment. Generally
considered, the State of São Paulo is better equipped with approved
machinery than any other commercial district in the world.
In Brazil, coffee plantations are known as _fazendas_, and the
proprietors as _fazendeiros_, terms that are the equivalent of "landed
estates" and "landed proprietors." Practically every _fazenda_ in Brazil
of any considerable commercial importance is equipped with the most
modern of coffee-cleaning equipment. Some of the larger ones in the
state of São Paulo, like the Dumont and the Schmidt estates, are
provided with private railways connecting the _fazendas_ with the main
railroad line some miles away, and also have miniature railway systems
running through the _fazendas_ to move the coffee from one harvesting
and cleaning operation to another. The coffee is carried in small cars
that are either pushed by a laborer or are drawn by horse or mule.
[Illustration: PICKING COFFEE ON A WELL KEPT FAZENDA]
[Illustration: MANAGER'S RESIDENCE ON ONE OF THE BIG SÃO PAULO FAZENDAS]
[Illustration: Photographs by Courtesy of J. Aron & Co.
DRYING GROUNDS ON A MODERN ESTATE IN RIBEIRAO PRETO]
[Illustration: MAKING BRAZIL COFFEE READY TO MARKET]
Some of the larger _fazendas_ cover thousands of acres, and have
several millions of trees, giving the impression of an unending forest
stretching far away into the horizon. Here and there are openings in
which buildings appear, the largest group of structures usually
consisting of those making up the _cafezale_, or cleaning plant. Nearby,
stand the handsome "palaces" of the _fazendeiros_; but not so close that
the coffee princes and their households will be disturbed by the almost
constant rumble of machinery and the voices of the workers.
[Illustration: Copyright by Brown & Dawson.
WORKING COFFEE ON DRYING FLATS, SÃO PAULO]
Brazilian _fazendeiros_ follow the methods described in the foregoing in
preparing their coffee for market, using the most modern of the
equipment detailed under the story of the wet method of preparation. On
most of the _fazendas_ the machinery is operated by steam or
electricity, the latter coming more and more into use each year in all
parts of the coffee-growing region.
In some districts, however, far in the interior, there are still to be
found small plantations where primitive methods of cleaning are even now
practised. Producing but a small quantity of coffee, possibly for only
local use, the cherries may be freed of their parchment by macerating
the husks by hand labor in a large mortar. On still another plantation,
the old-time bucket-and-beam crusher perhaps may be in use.
This consists of a beam pivoted on an upright upon which it moves freely
up and down. On one end of the beam is an open bucket; and on the other,
a heavy stone. Water runs into the bucket until its weight causes the
stone end of the beam to rise. When the bucket reaches the ground, the
water is emptied, and the stone crashes down on the coffee cherries
lying in a large mortar.
[Illustration: FERMENTING AND WASHING TANKS ON A SÃO PAULO FAZENDA]
The workers on some of the largest Brazilian _fazendas_ would constitute
the population of a small city--more than a thousand families often
finding continuous employment in cultivating, harvesting, cleaning, and
transporting the coffee to market. For the most part, the workers are of
Italian extraction, who have almost altogether superseded the Indian and
Negro laborers of the early days. The workers live on the _fazendas_ in
quarters provided by the _fazendeiros_, and are paid a weekly or monthly
wage for their services; or they may enter upon a year's contract to
cultivate the trees, receiving extra pay for picking and other work.
Brazil in the past has experimented with the slave system, with
government colonization, with co-operative planting, with the harvesting
system, and with the share system. And some features of all these
plans--except slavery, which was abolished in 1888--are still employed
in various parts of the country, although the wage system predominates.
[Illustration: By Courtesy of J. Aron & Co.
DRYING GROUNDS ON FAZENDA SCHMIDT, THE LARGEST IN BRAZIL]
Brazil has six gradings for its São Paulo coffees, which are also
classified as Bourbon Santos, Flat Bean Santos, and Mocha-seed Santos.
Rio coffees are graded by the number of imperfections for New York, and
as washed and unwashed for Havre. (See chapter XXIV.)
COLOMBIA. Practically all the countries of the western hemisphere
producing coffee in large quantities for export trade use the
cleaning-and-grading machines specified in the first part of this
chapter; and the installation of the equipment is increasing as its
advantages become better known.
In Colombia, now (1922), next to Brazil the world's largest producer,
the wet method of preparing the coffee for market is most generally
followed, the drying processes often being a combination of sun and
drying machines. Many plantations have their own hulling equipment; but
much of the crop goes in the cherry to local commercial centers where
there are establishments that make a specialty of cleaning and grading
the coffee.
The Colombia coffee crop is gathered twice a year, the principal one in
March and April and the smaller one in November and December, although
some picking is done throughout the year. For this labor native Indian
and negro women are preferred, as they are more rapid, skilful, and
careful in handling the trees. Contrary to the method in Brazil, where
the tree at one handling is stripped of its entire bearings, ripe and
unripe fruit, here only the fully ripened fruit is picked. That
necessitates going over the ground several times, as the berries
progressively ripen. More time is consumed in this laborious operation,
but it is believed that thereby a better crop of more uniform grade is
obtained and in the aggregate with less waste of time and effort.
Colombian planters classify their coffees as _café trillado_ (natural or
sun-dried), _café lavado_ (washed), _café en pergamino_ (washed and
dried in the parchment). They grade them as _excelso_ (excellent),
_fantasia_ (_excelso_ and _extra_), _extra_ (extra), _primera_, (first),
_segundo_ (second), _caracol_ (peaberry), _monstruo_ (large and
deformed), _consumo_ (defective), and _casilla_ (siftings).
[Illustration: PREPARING COLOMBIAN COFFEE FOR THE MARKET]
VENEZUELA. Venezuela employs both the dry and the wet methods of
preparation, producing both "washed" and "commons" and also, like
Colombia, has a large part of the coffee cleaned in the trading centers
of the various coffee districts. Dry, or unwashed, coffees are known as
_trillado_ (milled), and compose the bulk of the country's output.
Venezuela's plantation-working forces are largely natives of Indian
descent and negroes, some of them coming during harvesting season from
adjoining Colombia and returning there after the picking is done. The
resident workers labor under a sort of peonage system which is tacitly
recognized by both employee and employer, although no laws of peonage or
slavery have ever existed in Venezuela. Under this system, the laborers
live in little colonies scattered over the _haciendas_, as the coffee
plantations are called in Venezuela. Company stores keep them supplied
with all their wants. Modern plantation machinery is very scarce; the
ancient method of hulling coffee in a circular trough where the dried
berries are crushed by heavy wooden wheels drawn by oxen, is still a
common sight in Venezuela. In preparing washed coffees, some planters
ferment the pulped coffee under water (wet fermentation process); while
others ferment without water (dry fermentation).
[Illustration: THIS OLD-FASHIONED HULLING MACHINE IS OPERATED BY OX
POWER IN VENEZUELA]
The principal ports of shipments for Venezuela coffees are La Guaira,
Puerto Cabello, and Maracaibo. Caracas, the capital, is five miles in an
air line from the port of La Guaira; but in ascending the three thousand
feet of altitude to the city the railroad twists and turns among the
mountains for a distance of twenty-four miles. By rail or motor the trip
is one of much charm and great beauty.
SALVADOR. The planters in Salvador favor the dry method of coffee
preparation; and the bulk of the crop is natural, or unwashed.
GUATEMALA. Most Guatemalas are prepared for market by the wet method.
The gathering of the crops furnishes employment for half the population.
German and American settlers have introduced the latest improvements in
modern plantation machinery into Guatemala.
MEXICO. In Mexico coffee is harvested from November to January, and
large quantities are prepared by both the dry and the wet methods, the
latter being practised on the larger estates that have the necessary
water supply and can afford the machinery. Here, too, one will find
coffee being cleaned by the primitive hand-mortar and wind-winnowing
method. Laborers are mostly half-breeds and Indians. Chinese coolies
have been tried and found satisfactory, and some Japanese are utilized,
though not largely.
[Illustration: STREET CAR COFFEE TRANSPORT IN ORIZABA, MEXICO]
HAITI. In Haiti the picking season is from November to March. In recent
years better attention has been paid to cultural and preparation
methods; and the product is more favorably regarded commercially. Large
quantities are shipped to France and Belgium; and much of that sent to
the United States is reshipped to France, Belgium, and Germany, where it
is sorted by hand. Both dry and wet methods are employed in Haiti.
PORTO RICO. Here planters favor the wet method of coffee preparation.
The crop is gathered from August to December. The coffees are graded as
_caracollilo_ (peaberry), _primero_ (hand-picked), _segundo_ (second
grade), _trillo_ (low grade).
[Illustration: COFFEE ON THE DRYING FLOORS IN PORTO RICO]
NICARAGUA. The wet method of coffee preparation is mostly favored in
Nicaragua. Many of the large plantations are worked by colonies of
Americans and Germans who are competent to apply the abundant natural
water power of the country to the operation of modern coffee cleaning
machinery.
COSTA RICA. Costa Rica was one of the first countries of the western
world to use coffee cleaning machinery. Marcus Mason, an American
mechanical engineer then managing an iron foundry in Costa Rica,
invented three machines that would respectively peel off the husk,
remove the parchment and pulp, and winnow the light refuse from the
beans.
The inventor gave his original demonstration to the planters of San José
in 1860, and duplicates were installed on all the large plantations. In
the course of the next thirty years, Mason brought out other machines
until he had developed a complete line that was largely used on coffee
plantations in all parts of the world.
_In the Eastern Hemisphere_
Modern cleaning machinery and methods of preparation are employed to
some extent in the large coffee-producing countries of the eastern
hemisphere, and do not differ materially from those of the western.
ARABIA. In Arabia the fruit ripens in August or September, and picking
continues from then until the last fruits ripen late in the March
following. The cherries, as they are picked, are left to dry in the sun
on the house-top terrace or on a floor of beaten earth. When they have
become partly dry, they are hulled between two small stones, one of
which is stationary, while the other is worked by the hand power of two
men who rotate it quickly. Further drying of the hulled berry follows.
It is then put into bags of closely woven aloe fiber, lined with matting
made of palm leaves. It is next sent to the local market at the foot of
the mountain. There, on regular market days, the Turkish or Arabian
merchants, or their representatives, buy and dispatch their purchases by
camel train to Hodeida or Aden. The principal primary market in recent
years has been the city of Beit-el-Fakih.
[Illustration: RAKING COFFEE ON DRYING FLOORS--CHUVA DISTRICT,
GUATEMALA]
[Illustration: COFFEE DRYING PATIOS, HACIENDA LONGA-ESPANA, VENEZUELA]
[Illustration: SUN-DRYING COFFEE AMID SCENES OF RARE TROPICAL BEAUTY]
In Aden and Hodeida the bean is submitted to further cleaning by the
principal foreign export houses to whom it has come from the mountains
in rather dirty condition. Indian women are the sole laborers employed
in these cleaning houses. First, the coffee beans are separated from the
dry empty husks by tossing the whole into the air from bamboo trays, the
workers deftly permitting the husks to fly off while the beans are
caught again in the tray. The beans are then surface-cleaned by passing
them gently between two very primitive grindstones worked by men. A
third process is the complete clearing of the bean from the silver skin,
and it is then ready for the final hand picking. Women are called into
service again, and they pick out the refuse husks, quaker or black,
beans, green or immature beans, white beans, and broken beans, leaving
the good beans to be weighed and packed for shipment. The cleaned beans
are known as _bun safi_; the husks become _kisher_. Some of the poorer
beans also are sold, principally to France and to Egypt. Hand-power
machinery is used to a slight extent; but mostly the old-fashioned
methods hold sway.
[Illustration: A DRYING PATIO ON A COSTA RICA ESTATE]
[Illustration: Photograph by R.C. Wilhelm.
EARLY GUARDIOLA STEAM DRIER, "EL CANIDA" PLANTATION, COSTA RICA]
The Yemen, or Arabian, bale, or package, is unique. It is made up of two
fiber wrappers, one inside the other. The inside one is called _attal_
or _darouf_. It is made from cut and plaited leaves of _nakhel douin_ or
_narghil_, a species of palm. The outer covering, called _garair_, is a
sack made of woven aloe fiber. The Bedouins weave these covers and bring
them to the export merchants at Aden and Hodeida. A Mocha bundle
contains one, two, or four fiber packages, or bales. When the bundle
contains one bale it is known as a half; when it contains two it is
known as quarters; and when it contains four it is known as eighths.
Arabian coffee for Boston used to be packed in quarters only; for San
Francisco and New York, in quarters and eighths. The longberry
Abyssinian coffees were formerly packed in quarters only. Since the
World War, however, there has been a scarcity of packing materials, and
packing in quarters and eighths has stopped. Now, all Mocha, as well as
Harar, coffee comes in halfs. A half weighs eighty kilos, or 176 pounds,
net--although a few exporters ship "halfs" of 160 pounds.
[Illustration: INDIAN WOMEN CLEANING MOCHA COFFEE IN AN ADEN WAREHOUSE
There are four processes in cleaning Mocha coffee. In order to separate
the dried beans from the broken hulls these women (brought over from
India) toss the beans in the air, very deftly permitting the empty hulls
to fly off, and catch the coffee beans on the bamboo trays. Then the
coffee is passed between two primitive grindstones, turned by men. After
this grinding process the beans are separated from the crushed outside
hulls and the loose silver skins. In the fourth process the Indian women
pick out by hand the remaining husks, the quakers, the immature beans,
the white beans and the broken beans. Being Mohammedans, their religion
does not permit such little vanities as picture posing, which explains
why their faces are covered and turned away from the camera.]
ABYSSINIA. Little machinery is used in the preparation of coffee in
Abyssinia; none, in preparing the coffee known as Abyssinian, which is
the product of wild trees; and only in a few instances in cleaning the
Harari coffee, the fruit of cultivated trees. Both classes are raised
mostly by natives, who adhere to the old-time dry method of cleaning. In
Harar, the coffee is sometimes hulled in a wooden mortar; but for the
most part it is sent to the brokers in parchment, and cleaned by
primitive hand methods after its arrival in the trading centers.
ANGOLA. In Angola the coffee harvest begins in June, and it is often
necessary for the government to lend native soldiers to the planters to
aid in harvesting, as the labor supply is insufficient. After picking,
the beans are dried in the sun from fourteen to forty days, depending
upon the weather. After drying, they are brought to the hulling and
winnowing machines. There are now about twenty-four of these machines in
the Cazengo and Golungo districts, all manufactured in the United States
and giving satisfactory results. They are operated by natives.
A condition adversely affecting the trade has been the low price that
Angola coffee commands in European markets. The cost of production per
_arroba_ (thirty-three pounds) on the Cazengo plantations is $1.23,
while Lisbon market quotations average $1.50, leaving only twenty-seven
cents for railway transport to Loanda and ocean freight to Lisbon. It
has been unprofitable to ship to other markets on account of the
preferential export duties. A part of the product is now shipped to
Hamburg, where it is known as the Cazengo brand. Next to Mocha, the
Cazengo coffee is the smallest bean that is to be found in the European
markets.
[Illustration: CLEANING AND GRADING COFFEE BY MACHINERY IN ADEN]
JAVA AND SUMATRA. The coffee industry in Java and Sumatra, as well as in
the other coffee-producing regions of the Dutch East Indies, was begun
and fostered under the paternal care of the Dutch government; and for
that reason, machine-cleaning has always been a noteworthy factor in the
marketing of these coffees. Since the government relinquished its
control over the so-called government estates, European operators have
maintained the standard of preparation, and have adopted new equipment
as it was developed. The majority of estates producing considerable
quantities of coffee use the same types of machinery as their
competitors in Brazil and other western countries.
[Illustration: DRYING COFFEE IN THE SUN AT THE CUSTOM-HOUSE, HARAR,
ABYSSINIA]
In Java, free labor is generally employed; while on the east coast of
Sumatra the work is done by contract, the workers usually being bound
for three years. In both islands the laborers are mostly Javanese
coolies.
Under the contract system, the worker is subject to laws that compel him
to work, and prevent him from leaving the estate until the contract
period expires. Under the free-labor system, the laborer works as his
whims dictate. This forces the estate manager to cater to his workers,
and to build up an organization that will hold together.
As an example of the working of the latter system, this outline--by John
A. Fowler, United States trade commissioner--of the organization of a
leading estate in Java will indicate the general practise in vogue:
The manager of this estate has had full control for twenty years
and knows the "adat" (tribal customs) of his people and the
individual peculiarities of the leaders. This estate has been
described as having one of the most perfect estate organizations in
Java. It consists of two divisions of 3,449 bouws (about 6,048
acres in all), of which 2,500 bouws are in rubber and coffee and
550 in sisal; the remainder includes rice fields, timber,
nurseries, bamboo, teak, pastures, villages, roads, canals, etc.
The foreign staff is under the supervision of a general manager,
and consists of the following personnel: A chief garden assistant
of section 1, who has under him four section assistants and a
native staff; a chief garden assistant of section 2, who has under
him three section assistants, an apprentice assistant, and a native
staff; a chief factory assistant, who has under him an assistant
machinist, an apprentice assistant, and a native staff; and,
finally, a bookkeeper. The term "garden" means the area under
cultivation.
The bookkeeper, a man of mixed blood, handles all the general
accounting, accumulating the reports sent in by the various
assistants. The two chief garden assistants are responsible to the
manager for all work outside the factory except the construction of
new buildings, which is in charge of the chief factory assistant.
The two divisions of the estate are subdivided into seven
agricultural sections, each section being in full charge of an
assistant. A section may include coffee, rubber, sisal, teak,
bamboo, a coagulation station and nurseries. The assistant's duties
include the supervision of road building and repairs, building
repairs, transportation, paying the labor, and the supervision of
section accounts.
[Illustration: OPEN-AIR DRYING GROUNDS ON A WEST JAVA ESTATE
The beans are being turned by native Sudanese men and women]
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A MODERN COFFEE FACTORY IN EAST JAVA
Showing pulping machinery and fermentation tanks]
[Illustration: PREPARING JAVA COFFEE FOR THE MARKET]
The factory includes a water-power plant delivering, through an
American water wheel and by cable, 250 horse-power to the main
shafting, an auxiliary steam plant of 150 horse-power as a reserve,
a rubber mill, a coffee mill, three sisal-stripping machines,
smoke-houses, drying fields and houses for sisal, drying floors and
houses for coffee, sorting rooms, blacksmith shop, machine shop,
brass-fitting foundry, packing houses, warehouses, and other
equipment. The factory is in charge of a first assistant, who is a
machinist, with a European staff consisting of a machinist and an
apprentice assistant.
The chief garden assistant is paid 350 to 400 florins, and the
garden assistants start at 200 florins per month, with graduated
yearly increases up to 300 florins per month (florin=$0.40). The
chief factory assistant receives 300 florins, and the machinist and
bookkeeper 250 florins each.
The mandoer in charge of the air and kiln drying of coffee gets 25
florins per month, and the mandoer at the coffee mill 20 florins. A
woman mandoer in charge of the coffee sorters receives 0.50 florin
per day and 0.01 florin each for sewing the bags. This woman
supervises all the sorters, fixes their status, and inspects their
work. Unskilled labor (male) receives 0.40 florin per day in the
coffee sheds, and the women sorters are paid 0.50 florin per picul
of 136 pounds, measured before sorting. These women are graded into
three classes--those who can sort 1 picul in a day, those who can
sort three-fourths of a picul, and those who can sort but one-half
of a picul in a day. Some of these women become very expert in
sorting, and the quality of the output of a factory is largely
dependent on an ample supply of expert sorters. Many years are
required to develop an adequate personnel for this department.
[Illustration: COFFEE TRANSPORT IN JAVA]
[Illustration: THE WORLD'S COFFEE TOWER COMPARED WITH THE EIFFEL AND
WOOLWORTH TOWERS
The Woolworth Building, the world's loftiest office structure is 792
feet high from street to top of tower; its main section of 151 by 196
feet stretches up 386 feet, and its volume equals a total of 13,110,942
cubic feet. But a tower made of the year's supply of bags of green
coffee (132 pounds each) would equal 73,649,115 cubic feet, or nearly
six times the bulk of the Woolworth Building. In the same proportions it
would rise 1,386 feet, with the lower section 260 by 340 feet and 670
feet high. Its dimensions would be nearly double those of the Woolworth
Building in every direction. And the Eiffel Tower, reaching up 1,000
feet toward the sky would be lost in a tower made of a year's bags of
coffee. Such a tower would stand 1,425 feet high on a base area of 230
feet square, the size of the Eiffel's first floor.]
CHAPTER XXII
THE PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION OF COFFEE
_A statistical study of world production of coffee by
countries--Per capita figures of the leading consuming
countries--Coffee-consumption figures compared with tea-consumption
figures in the United States and the United Kingdom--Three
centuries of coffee trading--Coffee drinking in the United States,
past and present--Reviewing the 1921 trade in the United States_
The world's yearly production of coffee is on the average considerably
more than one million tons. If this were all made up into the refreshing
drink we get at our breakfast tables, there would be enough to supply
every inhabitant of the earth with some sixty cups a year, representing
a total of more than ninety billion cups. In terms of pounds the annual
world output amounts to about two and a quarter billions--an amount so
large that if it were done up in the familiar one-pound paper packages;
and if these packages were laid end to end in a row; they would form a
line long enough to reach to the moon. If this average yearly production
were left in the sacks in which the coffee is shipped, the total of
17,500,000 would be enough to form a broad six-foot pavement reaching
entirely across the United States, upon which a man could walk steadily
for more than five months at the rate of twenty miles a day. This vast
amount of coffee comes very largely from the western hemisphere; and
about three-fourths of it, from a single country. The production,
shipment, and preparation of this coffee, directly and indirectly
support millions of workers; and many countries are entirely dependent
on it for their prosperity and economic well-being.
During the crop year that ended June 30, 1921, this million-ton average
was considerably exceeded, though it did not approach the record yield
of all time in the crop year 1906-07, when the total amounted to almost
24,000,000 sacks; or, in round numbers, 3,000,000,000 pounds.
As indicated by the Statistical Record table, on page 274, Brazil
produces more than all the rest of the world put together. Coffee
growing, however, is general throughout tropical countries, and in most
of them constitutes one of the leading industries. Yet in most cases,
the actual production of these countries can only be estimated, as
accurate figures, showing the exact output, are seldom kept. But the
contribution which each country makes to the total world traffic in
coffee can be determined by its export figures, which are obtainable in
reasonably accurate and up-to-date form. The table on page 276 gives the
coffee export figures, in pounds, for practically every country that
produces coffee for sale outside its own borders. Figures are given for
the latest available year, and also for the average of the last five
years for which statistics are to be obtained. The figures are taken
from official statistics, from the publications of the International
Institute of Agriculture of Rome, and from other authoritative sources.
STATISTICAL RECORD FOR THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS
_Crops_
/---------------------------------\
Fiscal Rio and Other Total
Year Santos Countries (Bags)
(July 1 to (Bags)[I] (Bags)
June 30)
1883-84 5,047,000 4,526,000 9,573,000
1884-85 6,206,000 4,004,000 10,210,000
1885-86 5,565,000 3,505,000 9,070,000
1886-87 6,078,000 4,106,000 10,184,000
1887-88 3,033,000 3,214,000 6,247,000
1888-89 6,827,000 3,672,000 10,499,000
1889-90 4,260,000 3,965,000 8,225,000
1890-91 5,358,000 2,886,000 8,244,000
1891-92 7,397,000 4,453,000 11,850,000
1892-93 6,203,000 4,887,000 11,090,000
1893-94 4,309,000 5,307,000 9,616,000
1894-95 6,695,000 5,069,000 11,764,000
1895-96 5,476,000 4,901,000 10,377,000
1896-97 8,680,000 5,238,000 13,918,000
1897-98 10,462,000 5,596,000 16,058,000
1898-99 8,771,000 4,985,000 13,756,000
1899-00 8,959,000 4,842,000 13,801,000
1900-01 10,927,000 4,173,000 15,100,000
1901-02 15,439,000 4,296,000 19,735,000
1902-03 12,324,000 4,340,000 16,664,000
1903-04 10,408,000 5,575,000 15,983,000
1904-05 9,968,000 4,480,000 14,448,000
1905-06 10,227,000 4,565,000 14,792,000
1906-07 19,654,000 4,160,000 23,814,000
1907-08 10,283,000 4,551,000 14,834,000
1908-09 12,419,000 4,499,000 16,918,000
1909-10 14,944,000 4,181,000 19,125,000
1910-11 10,548,000 3,976,000 14,524,000
1911-12 12,491,000 4,918,000 17,409,000
1912-13 11,458,000 4,915,000 16,373,000
1913-14 13,816,000 5,796,000 19,612,000
1914-15 12,867,000 5,019,000 17,886,000
1915-16 14,992,000 4,764,000 19,756,000
1916-17 12,112,000 4,579,000 16,691,000
1917-18 15,127,000 3,720,000 18,847,000
1918-19 9,140,000 4,500,000 13,640,000
1919-20 6,700,000 8,463,000 15,163,000
1920-21 13,816,000 6,467,000 20,283,000
_Deliveries_
/---------------------------------\
Fiscal United
Year Europe States Total
(July 1 to (Bags) (Bags) (Bags)
June 30)
1883-84 6,774,000 2,635,000 9,409,000
1884-85 7,388,000 3,169,000 10,557,000
1885-86 7,198,000 2,938,000 10,136,000
1886-87 7,363,000 2,672,000 10,035,000
1887-88 5,888,000 2,164,000 8,052,000
1888-89 6,589,000 2,659,000 9,249,000
1889-90 6,716,000 2,704,000 9,420,000
1890-91 6,046,000 2,673,000 8,719,000
1891-92 6,392,000 4,412,000 10,804,000
1892-93 6,457,000 4,389,000 10,945,000
1893-94 6,272,000 4,298,000 10,570,000
1894-95 6,816,000 4,396,000 11,212,000
1895-96 6,803,000 4,339,000 11,142,000
1896-97 7,155,000 5,080,000 12,244,000
1897-98 8,535,000 6,036,000 14,571,000
1898-99 7,798,000 5,682,000 13,480,000
1899-00 8,937,000 6,035,000 14,972,000
1900-01 8,486,000 5,843,000 14,329,000
1901-02 8,853,000 6,663,000 15,516,000
1902-03 9,118,000 6,847,000 15,966,000
1903-04 9,280,000 6,853,000 16,133,000
1904-05 9,475,000 6,687,000 16,163,000
1905-06 9,934,000 6,806,000 16,741,000
1906-07 10,502,000 7,042,000 17,544,000
1907-08 10,481,000 7,043,000 17,525,000
1908-09 11,129,000 7,519,000 18,649,000
1909-10 10,811,000 7,287,000 18,098,000
1910-11 10,492,000 7,015,000 17,507,000
1911-12 10,712,000 6,762,000 17,474,000
1912-13 10,144,000 6,675,000 16,820,000
1913-14 11,027,000 7,545,000 18,573,000
1914-15 13,368,000 8,010,000 21,378,000
1915-16 11,050,000 8,834,000 19,884,000
1916-17 5,171,000 9,046,000 14,217,000
1917-18 6,209,000 8,624,000 14,833,000
1918-19 6,073,000 8,994,000 15,067,000
1919-20 7,047,000 9,683,000 16,730,000
1920-21 6,397,000 9,701,000 16,099,000
_Spot_
Fiscal _Visible_ _Quotations_,
Year _Supply_ _Rio No. 7_
(July 1 to _July 1._ _New York_,
June 30) (Bags) _July 1._
1883-84
1884-85 5,398,000 8-1/4
1885-86 5,051,000 7-1/8
1886-87 3,985,000 8-1/4
1887-88 4,134,000 16-7/8
1888-89 2,329,000 13-1/2
1889-90 3,579,000 14-1/2
1890-91 2,384,000 17-1/2
1891-92 1,909,000 17-3/8
1892-93 2,955,000 17-7/8
1893-94 3,100,000 16-5/8
1894-95 2,146,000 16-1/2
1895-96 3,115,000 15-3/4
1896-97 2,588,000 13
1897-98 3,975,000 7-3/8
1898-99 5,435,000 6-1/4
1899-00 6,200,000 6-1/8
1900-01 5,840,000 8-15/16
1901-02 6,867,000 6
1902-03 11,261,000 5-1/4
1903-04 11,900,000 5-3/16
1904-05 12,361,000 7-1/8
1905-06 11,265,000 7-3/4
1906-07 9,636,000 7-15/16
1907-08 16,400,000 6-3/8
1908-09 14,126,000 6-1/4
1909-10 12,841,000 7-3/4
1910-11 13,719,000 8-3/8
1911-12 11,070,000 13-1/8
1912-13 11,048,000 14-3/4
1913-14 10,285,000 9-5/8
1914-15 11,302,000 8-3/4
1915-16 7,523,000 7-1/2
1916-17 7,328,000 9-1/8
1917-18 7,793,000 9-1/2
1918-19 8,783,000 8-1/2
1919-20 7,173,000 22-1/4
1920-21 6,909,000 13-1/4
[I] 1 Bag=132.27 lbs.
[Illustration: THE WORLD'S COFFEE CUP AND THE WORLD'S LARGEST SHIP
The statistical sharks talk of the 17,566,000 bags, or 2,318,712,000
pounds of coffee that the world drinks every year; but how many really
appreciate what those huge figures mean? For instance, computing 40 cups
of beverage to the pound, there are more than 90,000,000,000 cups drunk
annually, or enough to fill a gigantic cup 4,000 feet in diameter and 40
feet deep, on which the "Majestic," the world's largest ship, would
appear floating approximately as shown in the drawing.]
For the most part, these figures of exportation are the only ones
available to indicate the actual coffee production in the countries
named. The following additional data, however, will serve to show the
extent to which the coffee-raising industry has developed in most of
these countries, and in a few places of minor importance not named in
the table:
BRAZIL. The coffee industry of Brazil, which has furnished seventy
percent of the world's coffee during the last ten years, has developed
in a century and a half. Brazilian soil first made the acquaintance of
the coffee plant at Pará in 1723. A small export trade to Europe had
developed by 1770, the year when the first plantation was established in
the state of Rio de Janeiro, and from which the country's great industry
really dates. Development at first was apparently slow, as no exports
are recorded until the beginning of the nineteenth century; so that the
history of Brazil's coffee trade is a matter entirely of the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. Once started, however, the new line of export
made rapid progress. In 1800, the amount of coffee exported was 1720
pounds, contained in thirteen bags. Twenty years later, 12,896,000
pounds were shipped, the number of bags being 97,498. Ten years later,
in 1830, this amount had increased to 64,051,000 pounds; and in 1840, to
137,300,000 pounds. In 1852-53, the receipts for shipment at the ports
were double that amount, 284,592,000 pounds; in 1860-61 they were
420,420,000 pounds; in 1870-71 they had increased to 427,416,000 pounds;
in 1880-81 they were 764,945,000 pounds; in 1890-91, 739,654,000 pounds;
and at the beginning of this century, 1900-01, they were 1,504,424,000
pounds, having passed the one billion-pound mark in 1896-97. The highest
point of coffee receipts in the country's history was reached in 1906-07
with 2,699,644,694 pounds; and since that year, the amount has staid at
about one and one-half billion pounds. Further expansion in the last
fifteen years has been closely regulated to prevent overproduction.
EXPORTS OF COFFEE FROM THE COFFEE-PRODUCING COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD
_Country_ _Five-Year Average_
South America: _Year_ _Pounds_ _Pounds_
Brazil 1920 1,524,382,650 1,469,949,180
Colombia 1920 190,961,953[c] 172,862,121
Venezuela 1920 73,726,632 110,174,946
Guiana, Br. 1917 267,344 257,152
Guiana, Fr. 1918 1,100 970
Guiana, D. 1918 3,856 923,644[d]
Ecuador 1919 3,729,413 5,843,033
Peru 1919 370,655 455,212
Central America:
Salvador 1920 82,864,668 78,953,339
Nicaragua 1920 15,345,398 23,243,865
Costa Rica 1921[a] 29,401,683 28,667,262
Guatemala 1920 94,205,569 88,213,080
Honduras 1920[b] 1,091,977 646,574
Mexico 1918 30,172,065 47,555,514[d]
West Indies:
Haiti 1920[b] 61,970,694[e] 54,308,959[d]
Dominican Republic 1920 1,361,666 3,497,866
Jamaica 1919 8,246,672 7,918,781
Porto Rico 1921 29,967,879[f] 30,033,471[d][f]
Trinidad & Tobago 1920 73,201 19,639
Martinique 1918 10,358 17,219
Guadeloupe 1918 2,144,855 1,594,146
Dutch East Indies 1920 99,020,453[i] 103,701,297[h]
Pacific Islands:
Br. North Borneo 1918 1,984 6,618
New Caledonia 1916 1,248,024 784,176
New Hebrides 1917 625,224 608,410[g]
Hawaii 1921 4,979,121[f] 4,244,479[d][f]
Réunion 1918 3,527 26,455
Asia:
Aden (Arabia) 1921[b] 9,463,104 10,837,893
Br. India 1920[b] 30,526,832 23,767,744
French Indo-China 1918 79,145 516,978
Africa:
Eritrea 1918 728,840 315,698
Somaliland, Fr. 1917 11,222,736 9,321,930
Somaliland, Br. 1918 440,272 233,908
Somaliland, It. 1918 3,747 3,306
Abyssinia 1917 17,324,223 12,744,406
German East Africa (former) 1913 2,334,450 2,649,047[d]
Br. East African Protectorate 1918 18,735,572 8,397,541
Uganda 1918 9,999,845 5,076,091
Nyasaland 1918 122,796 92,593
Mayotte (including Comoro Is.)1914 3,306 660
Madagascar 1918 707,676 981,047
Angola 1913 10,655,934 10,459,724
Belgian Congo 1919 347,588 186,432[h]
Fr. Equatorial Africa 1916 48,060 47,046
Nigeria 1916 3,527 19,180
Ivory Coast 1918 66,358 49,162
Gold Coast 1917 660 220
French Guinea 1918 1,320 1,320
Spanish Guinea 1918 8,150 3,968[h]
St. Thomas & Prince's Is. 1916 484,350 1,125,448
Liberia 1917 761,300
Cape Verde Islands 1916 1,442,910 1,100,095
[a] Crop year.
[b] Fiscal year.
[c] Including small proportion of unhusked coffee.
[d] Four-year average.
[e] Not including 6,322,167 pounds "triage" or waste coffee.
[f] Including shipments to continental United States.
[g] Two-year average.
[h] Three-year average.
[i] Java and Madura only
It is estimated that the area in the coffee-growing section suitable
for coffee raising covers 1,158,000 square miles, or more than one-third
the area of continental United States. The state of São Paulo is the
chief producing state, and supplies practically half the world's annual
output. Most of this São Paulo coffee is exported through the port of
Santos, which is consequently the leading coffee port of the world.
Besides Santos, the ports of Rio de Janeiro and Victoria are of much
importance in the coffee trade, although some twenty or thirty million
pounds are exported each year through the port of Bahia, and smaller
amounts through various other ports. The crop year of Brazil runs from
July 1 to June 30, the heaviest receipts for shipment coming as a rule
in the months of August, September, and October of each year. One-third
of the season's crop is usually received at ports of shipment before the
last of October, sometimes as early as the latter part of September;
one-half comes in by the middle or last of November; and two-thirds is
usually received, by the end of January.
[Illustration: No. 1--COFFEE EXPORTS, 1850-1920
This diagram shows the exports of the principal coffee-producing
countries, omitting Brazil]
[Illustration: No. 21--1 COFFEE EXPORTS, 1916-1920
This diagram shows the exports of the leading coffee countries (except
Brazil) in a period covering most of the World War]
VENEZUELA. The coffee plant was introduced into Venezuela in 1784, being
brought from Martinique; and the first shipment abroad, consisting of
233 bags, was made five years later. By 1830-31, production had
increased to 25,454,000 pounds; and in the next twenty years, it more
than trebled, amounting to 83,717,000 pounds in 1850-51. Since then,
however, the increase has been much more gradual. In 1881-82, 94,369,000
pounds were produced; and about the same amount, 95,170,000 pounds, in
1889-90. Twentieth-century production has apparently exceeded the
hundred-million mark on the average, although there are no definite
statistics beyond export figures. These showed 86,950,000 pounds sent
abroad in 1904-05; 103,453,000 pounds in 1908-09; and 88,155,000 pounds
in 1918; the trade in the last-named year being cut down by war
conditions. In 1919, the extraordinary amount of 179,414,815 pounds was
exported, the high figure being due to the release of coffee stored from
previous years. It has been estimated that domestic consumption of
coffee would amount to a maximum of 25,000,000 pounds yearly, but may be
much less than that. The United States and France have in the past been
Venezuela's best customers.
COLOMBIA. Prior to 1912, the total production of coffee in Colombia was
around 80,000,000 pounds annually, of which some 3,000,000 or 4,000,000
pounds were consumed in the country itself. But in the last decade
production has been advancing rapidly, and the present production is the
heaviest in the history of the country. The industry has practically
grown up in the last seventy years, the exports for the decade 1852-53
to 1861-62 averaging only about 940,000 pounds; in the decade following,
about 5,700,000 pounds; and, in the ten years from 1872-73 to 1881-82,
about 12,600,000 pounds, according to an unofficial compilation.
Exportations had advanced to about 47,000,000 pounds by 1895; and to
80,000,000 pounds by 1906. As large quantities of Colombian coffee are
shipped out through Venezuela, and because of the lack of detailed
statistics in Colombia, the actual exportation each year is not easy to
determine; but the following figures, obtained by a trade commissioner
of the United States, may be taken as a fairly accurate estimate of
exports from 1906 to 1918:
COLUMBIAN COFFEE EXPORTS
_Year_ _Sacks (138 lbs.)_
1906 605,705
1907 541,300
1908 577,900
1909 673,350
1910 543,000
1911 601,600
1912 888,800
1913 972,000
1914 983,000
1915 1,074,600
1916 1,153,000
1917 1,093,000
1918 1,102,000
[Illustration: No. 3--BRAZIL'S COFFEE EXPORTS, 1850-1920
Diagram based on 5-year averages with quantities given in millions of
pounds]
ECUADOR. Annual production in Ecuador runs from 3,000,000 to 8,000,000
pounds, most of which is exported. The greater part of the production is
sent to Chile and the United States. Production has shown only a gradual
increase since the middle of the nineteenth century, when planters began
to give some attention to coffee cultivation. Exports were about 87,000
pounds in 1855; 296,000 pounds in 1870; and 985,000 pounds in 1877. By
the beginning of the present century, production had reached 6,204,000
pounds; in 1905, it was estimated at 4,861,000 pounds; and in 1910, at
8,682,000 pounds. Exports in 1912 were 6,101,700 pounds; and 7,671,000
pounds in 1918; but there was a falling off to 3,729,000 pounds in 1919.
Several years ago it was estimated that the coffee trees numbered
8,000,000, planted on 32,000 acres.
PERU. Coffee is one of the minor products of Peru, and the country does
not occupy a place of importance in the international coffee trade. The
larger part of the production is apparently consumed in the country
itself. Export figures indicate that the industry is steadily declining.
Exports amounted to 2,267,000 pounds in 1905; to 1,618,000 pounds in
1908; and in the five years ending with 1918, exports averaged only
529,000 pounds; while figures for 1919 show that in that year they fell
still lower, to 370,000 pounds. Production is mainly in the coast lands.
BRITISH GUIANA. The Guianas are the site of the first coffee planting on
the continent of South America; and according to some accounts, the
first in the New World. The plants were brought first into Dutch Guiana,
but there was no planting in what is now British Guiana (then a Dutch
colony) until 1752. Twenty-six years later, 6,041,000 pounds were sent
to Amsterdam from the two ports of Demarara and Berbice; and after the
colony fell into the hands of the English in 1796, cultivation continued
to increase. Exports amounted to 10,845,000 pounds in 1803; and to more
than 22,000,000 pounds in 1810. Then there was a falling off, and the
production in 1828 was 8,893,500 pounds and 3,308,000 pounds in 1836. In
1849 British Guiana exported only 109,600 pounds. For a long period
thereafter there was little production, and practically no exportation;
exports in 1907, for instance, amounting to only 160 pounds. With the
next year, however, a revival of exportation began, and it has continued
to grow since then. In 1908, exports were 88,700 pounds; and for the
succeeding years, up to 1917, the following amounts are recorded: 1909,
96,952 pounds; 1910, 108,378 pounds; 1911, 136,420 pounds; 1912, 144,845
pounds; 1913, 89,376 pounds; 1914, 238,767 pounds; 1915, 172,326 pounds;
1916, 501,183 pounds; 1917, 267,344 pounds. In the last-named year 4,953
acres were in coffee plantations.
FRENCH GUIANA. This colony raises a small amount of coffee for local
consumption, and exports a few hundred pounds; but it is really an
importing and not an exporting colony. Coffee cultivation was never of
much importance, although in 1775 some 72,000 pounds were exported. One
hundred and eighty thousand pounds were harvested in 1860; and 132,000
pounds in 1870, mostly for local consumption.
DUTCH GUIANA. Regular shipments of coffee from Dutch Guiana have been
made for two centuries, beginning--a few years after the plant was
introduced--with a shipment of 6,461 pounds to the mother country in
1723. Seven years later, 472,000 pounds were shipped; and in 1732-33
exportation reached 1,232,000 pounds. Exports were averaging 16,900,000
pounds a year by 1760; and reached almost 20,600,000 pounds in 1777. At
the beginning of the nineteenth century, they amounted to about
17,000,000 pounds; but a few years later fell off to some 7,000,000
pounds, where they remained until about 1840; after which they began
again to decline. Exportation had practically ceased by 1875, only 1,420
pounds going out of the country, although cultivation still continued,
as evidenced by a production of 82,357 pounds in that year. In 1890,
production was only 15,736 pounds, and exports only 476 pounds; but
since then there has been a considerable increase. In 1900, production
amounted to 433,000 pounds, and exports to 424,000 pounds. In 1908,
1,108,000 pounds were grown, of which 310,000 pounds were sent abroad;
and in 1909, the figures were 552,000 pounds produced and 405,000 pounds
exported. No figures are available for production in recent years; but
the exportation of 1,600,000 pounds in 1917 indicates that plantings
have been steadily growing.
OTHER SOUTH AMERICAN COUNTRIES. Of the other South American countries,
Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay are coffee-importing countries; and the
coffee-raising industry of Paraguay, although more or less promising,
has yet to be developed. In Argentina, a few hundred acres in the
sub-tropical provinces of the north have been planted to coffee; but
coffee-growing will always necessarily remain a very minor industry.
Many attempts have been made to establish the industry in Paraguay,
where favorable conditions obtain, but only a few planters have met with
success. Their product has all been consumed locally. Bolivia has much
land suitable for coffee raising; and it is estimated that production
has reached as high as 1,500,000 pounds a year, but transportation
conditions are such as to hold back development for an indefinite time.
Small amounts are now exported to Chile.
SALVADOR. Coffee was introduced into Salvador in 1852, and immediately
began to spread over the country. Exports were valued at more than
$100,000 in 1865; and by 1874-75 the amount exported had reached
8,500,000 pounds. The first large plantation was established in 1876;
and since then planting has continued, until now practically all the
available coffee land has been taken up. The area in plantations has
been estimated at 166,000 acres, and the annual production at 50,000,000
to 75,000,000 pounds, of which some 5,000,000 pounds are consumed in the
country. Since the beginning of the present century, exports have in
general shown a considerable increase, the figures for 1901 being
50,101,000 pounds; for 1905, 64,480,000 pounds; for 1910, 62,764,000
pounds; for 1915, 67,130,000 pounds; and for 1920, 82,864,000 pounds.
GUATEMALA. Cultivation of coffee in Guatamala became of importance
between 1860 and 1870. In 1860, exports were only about 140,000 pounds;
by 1863, they had increased to about 1,800,000 pounds; and by 1870, to
7,590,000 pounds. In 1880-81, they amounted to 28,976,000 pounds; and in
1883-84, to 40,406,000 pounds. Twenty years later, they had doubled. In
recent years, exports have ranged between 75,000,000 and 100,000,000
pounds; the years from 1909 to 1918 showing the following results,
according to a consular report:
GUATEMALA'S COFFEE EXPORTS
_Cleaned_ _Unshelled_
_Year_ (pounds) (pounds)
1900 92,639,800 23,654,600
1910 50,717,600 19,671,700
1911 60,689,500 20,959,500
1912 14,329,800 60,837,500
1913 70,749,100 20,980,700
1914 71,136,800 14,999,600
1915 69,649,500 9,892,000
1916 85,057,000 3,015,800
1917 89,259,600 1,410,200
1918 77,842,800 511,500
COSTA RICA. Coffee raising in Costa Rica dates from 1779, when the plant
was introduced from Cuba. By 1845, the industry had grown sufficiently
to permit an exportation of 7,823,000 pounds; and twenty years later,
11,143,000 pounds were shipped. Thereafter, production increased
rapidly; so that in 1874, the total exports were 32,670,000 pounds, and
in 1884 they were more than 36,000,000 pounds. In recent years, the
average production has been around 35,000,000 pounds. For the crop years
1916-17 to 1920-21 exports have been:
COSTA RICA'S COFFEE EXPORTS
_Year_ _Pounds_
1916-17 27,044,550
1917-18 25,246,715
1918-19 30,784,184
1919-20 30,860,634
1920-21 29,401,683
NICARAGUA. Production of coffee in Nicaragua began between 1860 and
1870; and in 1875, the yield was estimated at 1,650,000 pounds. By
1879-80, this had increased to 3,579,000 pounds; and by 1889-90, to
8,533,000 pounds. In 1890-91 production was 11,540,000 pounds; and in
1907-08 it was estimated at more than 20,000,000 pounds. Ten years
later, 25,000,000 pounds were produced; and the crop of 1918-19 was
estimated at about 30,000,000 pounds. Lack of transportation, and excess
of political troubles, have been important factors in holding back
development.
HONDURAS. The coffee of Honduras is of very good quality; but production
is small, and the country is not an important factor in international
trade. Exports usually run less than 1,000,000 pounds. The chief
obstacle to expansion is said to be lack of transportation facilities.
BRITISH HONDURAS. This colony grows a little coffee for its own use, but
imports most of what it needs. Production had reached almost 50,000
pounds in 1904; but the present average is only about 10,000 pounds,
raised on scattering trees over about 1,000 acres.
PANAMA. A small amount of coffee, of which occasionally as much as
200,000 or 250,000 pounds a year are exported, is raised in the uplands
of Panama, or is gathered from wild trees. The industry is not of great
importance, and the country imports considerable supplies, mostly from
the United States.
MEXICO. A very good grade of coffee is produced in Mexico; and it is
said that there is sufficient area of good coffee land to take care of
the demand of the world outside of that supplied by Brazil. Production,
however, is limited, and to a large extent goes to satisfy home needs,
leaving only about 50,000,000 pounds for export. In spite of much
government encouragement in past years, coffee cultivation has not made
rapid progress, when we remember that the country became acquainted with
the plant as early as 1790. Not until about 1870 did the country begin
to become important in the list of coffee-exporters; but by 1878-79,
shipments amounted to about 12,000,000 pounds. This steadily increased
to 29,400,000 pounds in 1891-92. Exports in recent years have averaged
about 50,000,000 pounds; but in 1918 were only 30,000,000. Production
has fluctuated greatly. In the years preceding the troubled
revolutionary period, the total output was estimated as follows: 1907,
45,000,000 pounds; 1908, 42,000,000 pounds; 1909, 81,000,000 pounds;
1910, 70,000,000 pounds. In the ten years preceding 1907, production
dropped as low as 22,000,000 pounds in 1902; and rose to 88,500,000
pounds in 1905. Next to the United States, Germany was the chief buyer
of Mexican coffee before the war; although France and Great Britain also
took several million pounds each.
HAITI. For well over a century Haiti has been shipping tens of millions
of pounds of coffee annually; and the product is the mainstay of the
country's economic life. In all that time, however, shipments have
maintained much the same level. The country has been a coffee producer
from the early years of the eighteenth century, when the plants began to
spread from the original sprigs in Guiana or Martinique. After half a
century of growth, exports had risen to 88,360,000 pounds in 1789-90, a
mark that has never again been reached. Since then, exports have ranged
between 40,000,000 and 80,000,000 pounds, keeping close to the lower
mark in recent years because of European conditions. They were
38,000,000 pounds in 1856; 55,750,000 pounds in 1866; and 52,300,000
pounds in 1876. They had reached 84,028,000 pounds in 1887-88; but fell
back to 67,437,000 pounds in 1897-98; and ten years later, were
63,848,000 pounds. In 1917-18, they were only about two-thirds that
amount, or 42,100,000 pounds. Some 8,000,000 pounds are consumed yearly
in the country itself. The coffee plantations cover about 125,000 acres.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. Coffee production in the Dominican Republic ranges
between 1,000,000 and 5,000,000 pounds, exports in recent years
averaging about 3,500,000 pounds. The quality of the coffee is good; but
the plantations are not well cared for. Until fifty years ago, the
industry was in a state of decline from a condition of former
importance; but it was revived, and by 1881 it supplied 1,400,000 pounds
for export. The amount was 1,480,000 pounds in 1888; 3,950,000 pounds in
1900; 1,540,000 pounds in 1909; and 4,870,000 pounds in 1919. Blight,
and disturbed political conditions, have hampered development. In normal
times, Europe takes most of the export.
JAMAICA. Jamaica began to raise coffee about 1730; and from that time on
there was a steady but slow increase in production. Shipments amounted
to about 60,000 pounds in 1752, and to about 1,800,000 pounds in 1775.
At the beginning of the new century, in 1804, exports of 22,000,000
pounds are recorded; and in 1814 the figure was 34,045,000 pounds. Then
exports gradually fell off, and in 1861 were only 6,700,000 pounds. They
were 10,350,000 pounds in 1874; and since then, have not varied much
from 9,000,000 or 10,000,000 pounds a year. They were 9,363,000 pounds
in 1900; 7,885,000 pounds in 1909; and 8,246,000 pounds in 1919. The
acreage in coffee remains fairly constant, being 24,865 in 1900; 22,275
in 1911; and 20,280 in 1917. It is said that there are 80,000 acres of
good coffee land still uncultivated.
PORTO RICO. The cultivation of coffee in Porto Rico dates back to the
middle of the eighteenth century; but exportation does not seem to have
been much more than a million pounds a year until the first years of the
nineteenth century. Between 1837 and 1840, the average exportation was
about 10,000,000 pounds; and by 1865, this had risen to 24,000,000
pounds. Ten years later, it was 25,700,000 pounds. In recent years, it
has averaged about 37,000,000 pounds; the 1921 figure, including
shipments to continental United States, being 29,968,000 pounds.
Production since 1881 has been between 30,000,000 and 50,000,000 pounds;
the heaviest being in 1896 when the total output was 62,628,337
pounds--the largest figure in the island's history. The industry was
greatly damaged by a disastrous storm in 1900, and was also adversely
affected by the European War, as a large part of Porto Rico's crop goes
to Europe. Porto Rican coffee has not been popular in the United States,
which takes only limited amounts. Cuba is one of the island's best
customers.
GUADELOUPE. Coffee production in Guadeloupe reached its highest point in
the latter part of the eighteenth century, when more than 8,000,000
pounds were raised. The figure was about 6,000,000 in 1808; but the
output declined during the succeeding decades, and forty years later was
only 375,000 pounds. The amount produced in 1885 was 986,000 pounds;
and there has been a gradual increase, so that the crop has been large
enough to permit the exportation of 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 pounds, or
more, since the beginning of the present century. Exports in 1901 were
1,449,000 pounds; in 1908, 2,266,000 pounds; and in 1918, 2,144,000
pounds.
OTHER WEST INDIAN ISLANDS. Some little coffee is gathered for home
consumption in many other West Indian islands, but little is exported.
The island of Martinique, which is said to have seen the introduction of
the coffee plant into the western hemisphere, does not now raise enough
for its own use. Cuba was formerly one of the important centers of
production; but for various reasons the industry declined, and for many
years the country has imported most of its coffee supply. A century ago,
the plantations numbered 2,067; and the annual exportation amounted to
50,000,000 pounds. When the island became independent, steps were taken
to revive coffee planting; and in 1907 there were 1,411 plantations and
3,662,850 trees, producing 6,595,700 pounds of coffee. The Cubans,
however, now find it convenient to obtain their coffee from the
neighboring island of Porto Rico and from other sources; and
importations have remained around 20,000,000 pounds a year. In Trinidad
and Tobago, exports have reached as high as 1,000,000 pounds a year; but
in recent times they have fallen off heavily. St. Vincent exported 485
pounds in 1917, and Grenada, 251 pounds in 1916. The Leeward Islands
exported 1,415 pounds in 1917, and 2,946 pounds in 1916, the acreage
being 274, the same as for many years past.
ARABIA. The home of the famous Mocha coffee still produces considerable
quantities of that variety, although the output, comparatively speaking,
is not large. The chief district is the vilayet of Yemen; and the
product reaches the outside world mainly through the port of Aden,
although before the war much of this coffee was exported through
Hodeida. The port of Massowah, in the last two or three years, has been
drawing some of the supply of Mocha for export. No statistics are
available to show the production of Mocha coffee; but an estimate made
by the oldest coffee merchant in Aden places the average annual output
at 45,000 bags of 176 pounds each, or 7,920,000 pounds. Although this is
the only district in the world that can produce the particular grade of
coffee known as Mocha, there is little systematic cultivation, and large
areas of good coffee land are planted to other crops to provide food for
the natives. When transportation facilities are provided, so that this
food can be imported, it is predicted that the output of Mocha coffee
will be doubled.
Aden is a great transhipping port for coffee from Asia and Africa, and
more than half its exports are re-exports from points outside of Arabia.
The following figures will show the proportion of Arabian coffee coming
into Aden for export as compared with that from other producing
sections:
ADEN'S COFFEE RECEIPTS FOR RE-EXPORT
_Imports_ 1916-17 1917-18 1918-19
_from_ (pounds) (pounds) (pounds)
Abyssinia (via Jibuti) 4,529,280 6,174,896 4,337,760
Mocha and Ghizan 3,555,104 6,562,752 3,075,024
Somaliland (British) 394,128 396,592 245,840
Straits Settlements 672,224
Zanzibar and Pemba 92,512 795,312 764,288
All other countries 162,064 307,104 323,616
--------- ---------- ---------
Total 9,405,312 14,236,656 8,746,528
BRITISH INDIA. Cultivation of coffee was begun systematically in India
in 1840; and twenty years later, the country exported about 5,860,000
pounds. For the next eight years the exports remained at about that
figure; but in 1859 they amounted to 11,690,000 pounds; and by 1864 they
had doubled, rising in that year to 26,745,000 pounds. They have
continued at between 20,000,000 and 60,000,000 pounds ever since,
reaching their highest point in 1872 with 56,817,000 pounds. In recent
years, production and exportation have declined; the exports in 1920
being only 30,526,832 pounds. The area under coffee has been between
200,000 and 300,000 acres for fifty years or more, reaching its highest
point in 1896, with 303,944 acres. Recently the area has been slowly
decreasing.
CEYLON. The island of Ceylon was formerly one of the important producers
of coffee; and the industry was a flourishing one until about 1869, when
a disease appeared that in ten or fifteen years practically ruined the
plantations. Production has gone on since then, but at a steadily
declining rate. In late years, the island has not produced enough for
its own use, and is now ranked as an importer rather than as an
exporter. It is said that systematic cultivation was carried on in
Ceylon by the Dutch as early as 1690; and shipments of 10,000 to 90,000
pounds a year were made all through the eighteenth century, exports in
one year, 1741, going as high as 370,000 pounds. The English took the
island in 1795, and thirty years later, they began to expand
cultivation. Exports had risen to 12,400,000 pounds in 1836; and they
continued to increase to a high point of 118,160,000 pounds in 1870; but
in the next thirty years they declined, until they were only 1,147,000
pounds in 1900. The total acreage in coffee at one time reached as high
as 340,000; but as the coffee trees were affected by the leaf disease,
this land was turned to tea; and in 1917 there were only 810 acres left
in coffee.
DUTCH EAST INDIES. The year 1699 saw the importation from the Malabar
coast of India to Java of the coffee plants which were destined to be
the progenitors of the tens of millions of trees that have made the
Dutch East Indies famous for two hundred years. Twelve years afterward,
the first trickle of the stream of coffee that has continued to flow
ever since found its way from Java to Holland, in a shipment of 894
pounds. About 216,000 pounds were exported in 1721; and soon thereafter,
shipments rose into the millions of pounds.
From 1721 to 1730 the Netherlands East India Co. marketed 25,048,000
pounds of Java coffee in Holland; and in the decade following,
36,845,000 pounds. Shipments from Java continued at about the latter
rate until the close of the century, although in the ten years 1771-80
they reached a total of 51,319,000 pounds. The total sales of Java
coffee in Holland for the century were somewhat more than a quarter of a
billion pounds, which represented pretty closely the amount produced.
With the beginning of the nineteenth century, coffee production soon
became much heavier; and in 1825 Java exported, of her own production,
some 36,500,000 pounds, besides 1,360,000 pounds brought from
neighboring islands to which the cultivation had spread. In 1855, the
amount was 168,100,000 pounds of Java coffee, and 4,080,000 pounds of
coffee from the other islands. This is the highest record for the
half-century following the beginning of the regular reports of exports
in 1825. From 1875 to 1879 the average annual yield was 152,184,000
pounds. In 1900, production in Java was 84,184,000 pounds; in 1910, it
was 31,552,000 pounds, and in 1915 it had jumped to 73,984,000 pounds.
On the west coast of Sumatra coffee was regularly cultivated, according
to one account, as early as 1783; but it was not until about 1800, that
exportation began, with about 270,000 pounds. By 1840, exports were
averaging 11,000,000 to 12,250,000 pounds per year. Official records of
production date from 1852, in which year the figures were 16,714,000
pounds. Five years later the recorded yield was 25,960,000 pounds, the
high-water mark of Sumatra production. The total output in 1860 was
21,400,000 pounds; and 22,275,000 pounds in 1870. The average from 1875
to 1879 was 17,408,000 pounds; and from 1895 to 1899, it was 7,589,000
pounds. The yield was 5,576,000 pounds in 1900; 1,360,000 in 1910; and
7,752,000 in 1915.
In Celebes, the first plants were set out about 1750; but seventy years
later production was only some 10,000 pounds. This soon increased to
half a million pounds; and from 1835 to 1852 the yield ran between
340,000 and 1,768,000 pounds. From 1875 to 1879, production averaged
2,176,000 pounds; from 1885 to 1889, 2,747,000 pounds; and from 1895 to
1899, 707,000 pounds. In 1900, it was 680,000 pounds; in 1910, 272,000
pounds; and in 1915, 272,000 pounds.
Planting under government control, largely with forced labor, has been
the special feature of coffee cultivation in the Dutch East Indies. At
first the government exercised what was practically a monopoly; but
private planting was more and more permitted; and in the latter part of
the nineteenth century, the amount of coffee produced on private
plantations exceeded that raised by the government. The government has
now entirely given up the business of coffee production.
The total production of coffee in Java, Sumatra, and Celebes, in 1920,
in piculs of 136 pounds, was as follows:
DUTCH EAST INDIES' COFFEE PRODUCTION
_Kind of_ _Quantity Produced in_
_Coffee_ Java Sumatra Celebes Total
and Bali
(piculs) (piculs) (piculs) (piculs)
Liberica 14,972 6,243 2,074 23,289
Java 16,312 24,291 70,621 111,224
Robusta 411,235 256,645 4,998 672,878
------- ------- ------ -------
Total 442,519 287,179 77,693 807,391
STRAITS SETTLEMENTS. Trade in coffee is a transhipping trade, Singapore
acting as a clearing center for large quantities of coffee from the
neighboring islands. In 1920, the imports were 25,914,267 pounds; and
the exports, 26,856,000 pounds.
FEDERATED MALAY STATES. The acreage in coffee in the Federated Malay
States is steadily declining. In 1903, coffee plantations covered 22,700
acres; in 1913, 7,695 acres; and in 1916, 4,312 acres. There was
formerly a considerable export; but apparently local production is now
required for home consumption, as in 1920 exports were practically
nothing, and about 9,800 pounds were imported.
BRITISH NORTH BORNEO. Total exports of coffee have reached as high as
50,000 pounds, which was the figure in 1904; but they are much less now;
being 5,973 pounds in 1915; 15,109 pounds in 1916; and 1,980 pounds in
1918.
SARAWAK. Previous to 1912, the exportation of coffee from Sarawak, was
20,000 to 45,000 pounds annually. In 1912, a coffee estate of 300 acres
was abandoned, and since that time there have been no exports.
PHILIPPINES. Coffee raising was formerly one of the chief industries of
the Philippines; but it has now greatly declined, partly because of the
blight. Exports reached their highest point in 1883, when 16,805,000
pounds were shipped. Since then, they have fallen off steadily to
nothing; and the islands are now importers, although still producing
considerable for their own use. The area still under cultivation in 1920
was 2,700 acres; and the production in that year was given as 2,710,000
pounds, as compared with 1,580,000 pounds in 1919, and an average of
1,500,000 pounds for the previous five years.
GUAM. Coffee is a common plant on the island but is not systematically
cultivated. There is no exportation, but a Navy Department report says
that the possible export is not less than seventy-five tons annually.
HAWAII. A certain amount of coffee has been produced in the Hawaiian
Islands for many years, exports being recorded as 49,000 pounds in 1861;
as 452,000 pounds in 1870; and as 143,000 pounds in 1877. The trees grow
on all the islands; but nearly all the coffee produced is raised on
Hawaii. The trees are not carefully cultivated; but the coffee has an
excellent flavor. The amount of land planted to coffee is about 6,000
acres. The exports go mostly to continental United States. The exports
are increasing, the figures up to 1909 ranging usually between 1,000,000
and 2,000,000 pounds, and now usually running between 2,000,000 and
5,000,000 pounds. Including shipments to continental United States,
Hawaii exported 5,775,825 pounds in 1918; 3,649,672 pounds in 1919;
2,573,300 pounds in 1920; and 4,979,121 pounds in 1921.
AUSTRALIA. Queensland is the only state of the Commonwealth in which
coffee growing has been at all extensively tried; and here the results
have, up to the present time, been far from satisfactory. The total area
devoted to this crop reached its highest point in the season 1901-02
when an area of 547 acres was recorded. The area then continuously
declined to 1906-07, when it was as low as 256 acres. In subsequent
seasons the area fluctuated somewhat; but, on the whole, with a downward
tendency. In 1919-20, only 24 productive acres were recorded, with a
yield of 16,101 pounds. The country is now listed among the consuming
rather than the producing countries.
ABYSSINIA. This country, usually credited with being the original home
of the coffee plant, still has, in its southern part, vast forests of
wild coffee whose extent is unknown, but whose total production is
believed to be immense. It is of inferior grade, and reaches the market
as "Abyssinian" coffee. There is also a large district of coffee
plantations producing a very good grade called "Harari", which is
considered almost, if not quite, the equal of the Arabian Mocha. This is
usually shipped to Aden for re-export. Abyssinia's coffee reaches the
outside world through three different gateways; and as the neighboring
countries, through which the produce passes, also produce coffee, no
accurate statistics are available to show the country's annual export.
The total probably ranges from 10,000,000 to 20,000,000 pounds a year.
Coffee was shipped from Abyssinia to the extent of 6,773,800 pounds in
1914, over the Franco-Ethiopian railroad; 10,054,000 pounds in 1915; and
9,064,000 pounds in 1916. Export figures of the port of Massowah include
a large amount of Abyssinian coffee, but the proportion is unknown. At
this port 108,680 pounds of coffee were exported in 1914; and 1,221,880
pounds in 1915. Abyssinian coffee exported by way of the Sudan amounted
to 232,616 pounds in 1914; to 140,461 pounds in 1915; and to 4,164,600
pounds in 1916.
BRITISH EAST AFRICAN PROTECTORATE. The acreage in coffee has greatly
increased in recent years. It was estimated at 1,000 acres in 1911; and
by 1916, it had grown to 22,200 acres. Production, as shown by the
exports, has likewise increased greatly; and exports in recent years
have averaged about 8,000,000 pounds a year. They were 10,984,000 pounds
in 1917; and were 18,735,000 pounds in 1918.
UGANDA PROTECTORATE. The acreage in coffee has been steadily increasing,
as shown by the following figures: 1910, 697 acres; 1914, 19,278 acres;
1916, 23,857 acres; 1917, 22,745 acres. In 1909, 33,440 pounds of coffee
were produced; and by 1918, this had grown to 10,000,000 pounds. The
average for the five years, 1914-18, was 5,076,000 pounds.
NYASALAND PROTECTORATE. Twenty-five years ago, this colony exported
coffee in amounts ranging from 300,000 to more than 2,000,000 pounds.
Production has now so declined, that only 122,000 pounds were exported
in 1918; and the average for recent years has been about 92,000 pounds.
The acreage in bearing in 1903 was 8,234; and in 1917 it was 1,237.
NIGERIA. Production has been falling off in recent years. Exports were
35,000 pounds in 1896; 57,000 pounds in 1901; and 70,000 pounds in 1909.
In 1916 and 1917, however, they were only about 3,000 pounds.
GOLD COAST. This colony formerly produced considerable coffee, exporting
142,000 pounds in 1896. There have been no exports in recent years,
except about 440 pounds in 1916, and 660 pounds in 1917.
SOMALILAND PROTECTORATE. Exports of coffee were more than 7,500,000
pounds in 1897, indicating a very extensive production. But since then,
there has been a steady decline; and in 1918 only about 440,000 pounds
were shipped.
SOMALI COAST (FRENCH). Exports of coffee from this colony amounted to
more than 5,000,000 pounds in 1902; and since then, they have remained
fairly steadily at that figure, showing considerable increase in late
years. Total exports in 1917 were 11,200,000 pounds.
ITALIAN SOMALILAND. Some coffee appears to be grown in this colony; but
exports have been inconsiderable for many years.
SIERRA LEONE. Production has been steadily declining for twenty years.
Exports were 33,376 pounds in 1903; 17,096 pounds in 1913; and 8,228
pounds in 1917.
MAURITIUS. In former times this island was an important coffee producer,
exports in the early part of the nineteenth century running as high as
600,000 pounds. Today there is practically no export, and only about 30
acres are in bearing, producing 4,000 to 8,000 pounds a year.
RÉUNION. This island also was once a notable grower of coffee. A century
ago, production was estimated as high as 10,000,000 pounds; and this
rate of output continued well through the nineteenth century. In the
present century, production has fallen off; and only about 530,000
pounds were exported in 1909. The decrease has continued, so that the
average in recent years has been only about 25,000 pounds.
_Coffee Consumption_
Of the million or more tons of coffee produced in the world each year,
practically all--with the exception of that which is used in the
coffee-growing countries themselves--is consumed by the United States
and western Europe, the British dominions, and the non-producing
countries of South America. Over that vast stretch of territory
beginning with western Russia, and extending over almost the whole of
Asia, coffee is very little known. In the consuming regions mentioned,
moreover, consumption is concentrated in a few countries, which together
account for some ninety percent of all the coffee that enters the
world's markets. These are, the United States, which now takes more than
one-half, and Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Holland, Belgium,
Switzerland, and Scandinavia.
The United Kingdom stands out conspicuously among the nations of western
Europe as a small consumer of coffee, the per capita consumption in that
country being only about two-thirds of a pound each year. France and
Germany are by far the biggest coffee buyers of Europe so far as actual
quantity is concerned; although some of the other countries mentioned
drink much more coffee in proportion to the population. The
Mediterranean countries and the Balkans are of only secondary
importance as coffee drinkers. Among the British dominions, the Union of
South Africa takes much the largest amount, doubtless because of the
Dutch element in its population; while Canada, Australia, and New
Zealand show the influence of the mother country, consumption per head
in the last two being no greater than in England.