Coffee across the seven seas — how is coffee transported?
In the global economy, coffee is “liquid black gold”, often compared with oil in discussions of commodity trading. Before it reaches warehouses, roasteries and cafés, however, it must travel from the country where it is produced to the country where it will be consumed. Finland, Norway and Iceland are among the greatest coffee-drinking nations: their residents can hardly imagine life without beans brought from Brazil, Honduras or Ethiopia in the Global South. In practice, the journey from producer to consumer is extremely long — quite literally.
A word of warning: writing this made us realise that we must be rather hardcore to work in what could be the world's most extreme industry. Read on at your own risk!
From farm to port
The first stage of a coffee journey lasting several months is transport from the farm to the port, where it will leave for an importing country. It sounds simple, but it certainly is not. Coffee is a delicate raw material, prone to spoilage and exceptionally good at absorbing surrounding odours. It must be protected from moisture, otherwise the coffee you later brew in your home moka pot may release unpleasant smells picked up on the journey.
It is therefore commonly packed in 60-kilogram sacks woven from thick jute or sisal, a fibre obtained from agave leaves. Both allow air circulation and offer some natural protection during transport; jute is even said to complement the beans' aroma. Every available means of transport may be used to reach the port, from a donkey's back to a lorry bed. The route can include many kilometres of mountain paths and forest tracks, and, considering the countries where coffee is grown, relatively few motorways.
In practice, transport from a farm can be complicated and full of hazards. A sudden Andean downpour may wash away roads and trigger landslides; in some tropical forests, armed groups may demand payments; and a nationwide strike can block the road to port for days. If all the ordered sacks arrive at an Atlantic port on time, the producer and exporter can count themselves lucky — and prepare the goods for the next stage.
Across the seven seas
Coffee has travelled by sea for centuries, and little seems likely to change in the coming decades. Containers carried aboard merchant ships can hold around 21 tonnes of green coffee. If that sounds impressive, consider that in September 2020 Brazil alone shipped 3.5 million 60-kilogram sacks overseas. With quantities like these, sea freight is more economical for buyers than the alternative: air transport.
Unfortunately, shipping involves water, which means a risk of moisture. Modern containers offer far better protection than the vessels used to carry coffee in the seventeenth century, but beans remain extremely delicate, and sometimes little is needed to spoil an entire shipment.
As if that were not enough, there are storms, accidents, mechanical failures and, just as in the seventeenth century, pirates. The film Captain Phillips (2013) shows that encounters with twenty-first-century pirates are nothing like Jack Sparrow's adventures. The Maersk Alabama, genuinely attacked by pirates in April 2009, was carrying a substantial supply of coffee among its cargo — as so many merchant ships leaving the continent do.
If our shipment survives storms, customs strikes blocking the port, pirate attacks and other hazards of sea transport without major damage or delay, we can consider ourselves fortunate.
From warehouse to your cup
Has your coffee reached the destination country? Congratulations! You can start thinking about firing up the roaster and taking your dripper out of the cupboard — provided you can collect it and deliver it to the roastery quickly and smoothly. Like everything involving coffee, that can be complicated.
This time, the obstacles facing roastery owners come not from pirates but from administrative offices. Almost all imported coffee comes from outside the European Union, so EU paperwork must be dealt with before it goes into the roaster. Then there is “just” the overland journey to our roastery, and we can get on with our favourite part: roasting.