Ethiopia’s coffee trading is soon to include speciality coffee trading alongside the trading of commercial coffee trading. The speciality coffee trading measure aims at connecting farmers directly with international buyers, opening a direct window for them, according to Eleni Gebre Medhin, CEO of the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX).

To date the ECX has been handling only commercial grade coffee, whose origin is difficult to pinpoint. Specialty coffee is designated by origin, which adds value to it. The ECX and Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) organized the first specialty coffee event Wednesday, October 21, 2009, at the Sheraton Addis. This event was considered to be the first step towards commencing speciality coffee trading as it brought together key players in the global specialty coffee industry and international buyers to discuss how the ECX could handle the new trading.

“Over time, we think that tables will turn and we might be producing or trading a lot more specialty coffee than commercial coffee,” Eleni had said in an earlier interview with Fortune.

For coffee to be considered speciality coffee, its quality, socio-economic impact on the producer, environmental attributes, and traceability to the grower must be evaluated. Quality and traceability will be given greater emphasis Eleni says.

ECX started work to introduce speciality coffee trading by travelling to Atlanta, GA in the US for the annual event of the SCAA held in April.

ECX also started preparing the trade and capacity building of the professionals who will taste and grade coffee. That led to the professional accreditation of 37 people by the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI), including some of the coffee tasters who used to work for the old Coffee Board.

CQI is a non-profit organization working to improve coffee quality and the lives of the people who produce it. CQI’s Q Grader Program is the coffee industry’s only professional accreditation programme for cuppers (coffee tasters), according to the information from SCAA. The professionals thus accredited will identify coffee that meets the minimum SCAA standard.

The accreditation of these professionals has given Ethiopia the largest number of Q Graders in Africa. Some of these people were presenting speciality coffee from Yirga Cheffe, Sidama, Jimma, Limmu, Harar and a number of other places during the Sheraton event, proudly displaying their Q Grader badges on their chests.

There are currently 760 Licensed Q Graders worldwide; Brazil, Costa Rica, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and the US have 10, 28, 18, 16, 18 and 74 Q Graders, respectively.

The Ethiopian government is also in the process of drafting legislation to recognize and accredit international and national certification agencies, such as those for organic coffee, according to Yacob Yala, state minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The state minister explained his government’s commitment at the opening of the specialty coffee event, focusing on finding appropriate solutions for marketing specialty coffee in such a way as to be fair to small producers. 

The participants left for Dilla on Saturday, October 24 for the inauguration of the Dilla Regional Laboratory and Warehouse. This centre is the third to open within a month, following the inauguration of one in Hawassa and another in Jimma. These regional centres are expected to help keep coffee sorted by origin without it getting mixed with coffee from other origins.

ECX has handled the transaction of 161,000tns of coffee worth almost three billion Br since December 2008, despite the challenges of the financial crisis resulting in the global recession.

March ICE Arabica (KCAH0) Coffee:
The picture is mixed, with a slightly bullish bias for the short-term.
Remaining above 137 will keep KCAH0 positioned to continue higher, and challenge 145, then 146.85.

Invalidation: On the other hand, a close below 137 would signal a decline towards 133.05. At that point, a close below 133 would open the door to a decline towards 130, then 128.05

By Susan Salisbury
THE PALM BEACH POST

Drink up, coffee lovers. Not only is coffee aromatic and delicious, it’s good for you.

Who says? None other than Harvard Medical School.

Once considered questionable for your health, it turns out that the beloved beverage is actually healthful in moderation. That means a few cups a day.

At about 20 cents per 6-ounce cup, coffee is a good deal if you brew it yourself.

Harvard researchers say drinking coffee might help prevent diseases such as:

Cancer: Some studies have found coffee drinkers have lower rates of colon and rectal cancers and are 50 percent less likely to get liver cancer than coffee abstainers.

Type 2 diabetes: Coffee is thought to contain chemicals that lower blood sugar because heavy coffee drinkers might be half as likely to get diabetes as those who drink little or no coffee. Coffee also may increase your resting metabolism rate, which could help prevent diabetes.

Parkinson’s disease: Coffee seems to help protect men from Parkinson’s disease, but not women. The difference might be due to estrogen, researchers say.

Heart disease: Coffee is not linked to the development of heart disease. In the past few years, Harvard scientists say, coffee has been shown to be safe even for heart attack survivors. Scientists think antioxidants in coffee may reduce inflammation and protect blood vessel walls.

Life span: Recent studies suggest that drinking coffee decreases the risk of premature death, especially in women. Women who drank at least five to seven cups a week had a death rate 26 percent lower than non-consumers, a large investigation by researchers in Spain and at Harvard Medical School found.

It’s not only Harvard researchers who are touting the brew’s benefits.

Last month, a study led by Neal Freedman of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., showed that people with chronic hepatitis C and advanced liver disease who drank three or more cups of coffee a day cut their risk of the disease progressing by 53 percent.

Although caffeine might be considered the “active ingredient” in coffee, coffee is only 2 percent caffeine and 98 percent “other stuff,” including more than 1,000 different compounds such as vitamins, minerals and amino acids.

It even contains fiber. Each cup contains from 1.1 to 1.8 grams of soluble dietary fiber, the kind that dissolves in water and helps prevent cholesterol from being absorbed by the intestines, according to researchers at the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid.

Do researchers have any words of caution? Yes — although regular coffee drinking isn’t harmful for most people, that might not hold true for pregnant women. Research has linked miscarriage to caffeine consumption of 200 milligrams or more per day. A typical cup of coffee has 100 to 150 milligrams, Harvard reports.

Of course, we like to be able to justify our morning addiction as healthful, when the truth may be we can’t get moving without it!

Is it possible to be caffeine-addicted? Yes, University of Florida professor and director of toxicology Bruce Goldberger says.

“It is one of the most commonly ingested drugs worldwide. It is addictive. One example of that is if you consume a lot of caffeine, then you don’t, you start to crave it. If you consume a lot of caffeine, and it is not working, then you need to consume more,” Goldberger said.

Like anything, experts advise, moderation counts. Anyone who’s ever had the jitters from drinking too much coffee knows that.

Bogota, Oct 26 – Expectations of strong droughts hitting Colombia in the first three months of next year have led some of the country’s coffee growers cut their production estimates for 2010.
The El Nino weather phenomena is producing high temperatures across the country and the tendency is expected to worsen into the first quarter.

Rains in September were 30 percent lower in the coffee producing departments of Santander, Norte de Santander, Quindio, Tolima, Huila and Narino compared with average September levels in previous years.

It was the driest September in 12 years, Humberto Gonzalez, director of weather forecast for the government’s weather office, IDEAM, told Reuters.

But the worst of El Nino could be yet to come. Rains in October through December could decrease 30 percent from average levels, while precipitation may be even lower during the first quarter of 2010.

“The average levels of rains in the October-December period will be below normal, affecting mainly the Andean region, where most of coffee production is located and the Colombian Caribbean,” Gonzalez said.

“The dry season could be worst between January and March, when El Nino is expected to intensify,” he said.

Colombia’s dry season is in the first quarter, but 2010’s will be particularly severe due to El Nino, Gonzalez added.

El Nino is an abnormal warming of water in the eastern Pacific Ocean off the west coast of South America. El Nino usually recurs every 3 to 7 years with varying degrees of intensity.

The intensity of the current Nino is moderate, Gonzalez noted.

Were it not for El Nino, rich-coffee producing areas such as Quindio, Risaralda, Antioquia and Tolima, which accounts for 52.4 percent of the country’s total bean production, could have an average rainfall of 2,150 millimeters (85 inches) this year.

But rainfall would total only 1,500 millimeters per year, predicts Gonzalez.

Poor weather predictions led the state of Huila to reduce its output estimate for next year to 1.7 million 60-kilogram bags, down from an initial projection of 2 million bags, Hector Falla, who represents producers for the province, said.

“All (information) makes us forecast that the January, February and March period is going to be really complicated,” he said.

The head of Colombia’s coffee growers’ federation recently said production for next year may total 11 million bags of 60-kilogram bags versus 9.3 million bags expected this year, give or take 5 percentage points.

Gomez believes coffee production will come near the lower target range of the federation’s target or around 8.8 million.

Other coffee producers are confident that IDEAM’s pessimistic predictions may not come true.

Javier Bohorquez, who represents 37,000 families spanning in 55 municipalities in the state of Cundinamarca, expects to collect 80 percent of next year’s 517,000 bags in the April-June harvest.

“IDEAM has historically been mistaken,” Bohorquez. “Even if it is doesn’t rain enough in the first quarter of the year, we have properly fertilized to withstand one month of no rains,” he concluded.

LESS RAIN IN SEPTEMBER

Colombia is the third biggest coffee producer in the world after Brazil and Vietnam.

According to the country’s National Coffee Research Center, known as Cenicafe, rainfall at the Paraguaicito weather station located in the municipality of Buenavista in the state of Cauca, received in September a-sixth of rains than what it gets on average for the month.

Cauca accounts for 7 percent of the country’s output.

The same situation was present in the coffee-rich municipality of Libano, in the state of Tolima, which got 70 millimeters of rains in September, compared to 220 millimeters it gets on average for that month.

Tolima weights 11.3 percent of total production, the third-heaviest weighted department in terms of production.

During the first 22 days of October, rainfall increased compared to September but that is still below average levels.

The Naranjal weather station next to Caldas’s coffee region of Chinchina, received 224 millimeters of rain in the first 22 days of October, down from an average of 288 millimeters in the same period in recent years, Cenicafe says.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Researchers in the United States have found another good reason to go to the local espresso bar: several cups of coffee a day could halt the progression of liver disease, a study showed Wednesday.

Sufferers of chronic hepatitis C and advanced liver disease who drank three or more cups of coffee per day slashed their risk of the disease progressing by 53 percent compared to patients who drank no coffee, the study led by Neal Freedman of the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) showed.

For the study, 766 participants enrolled in the Hepatitis C Antiviral Long-Term Treatment against Cirrhosis (HALT-C) trial — all of whom had hepatitis C which had not responded to treatment with anti-viral drugs — were asked to report how many cups of coffee they drank every day.

The patients were seen every three months during the 3.8-year study and liver biopsies were taken at 1.5 and 3.5 five years to determine the progression of liver disease.

“We observed an inverse association between coffee intake and liver disease progression,” meaning patients who drank three or more cups of java were less likely to see their liver disease worsen than non-drinkers, wrote the authors of the study, which will be published in the November issue of Hepatology.

The researchers put forward several ways in which coffee intake might protect against liver disease, including by reducing the risk of type two diabetes, which has been associated with liver illness; or by reducing inflammation, which is thought to cause fibrosis and cirrhosis of the liver.

Even caffeine, the chemical that gives a cup of coffee its oomph, came under the spotlight, having been found in previous studies to inhibit liver cancer in rats.

But drinking black or green tea, which also contain caffeine, had little impact on the progression of liver disease, although there were few tea drinkers in the study.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) three to four million people contract hepatitis C each year.

Seventy percent of cases become chronic and can cause cirrhosis or liver cancer.