Panama City, Sept 29 - Central America's high-end coffee producers saw strong interest in their expensive beans for export this year, selling more to Asian and European markets as U.S. buyers were squeezed by the financial crisis.
With a weak U.S. dollar making Central American coffee more affordable for buyers using other currencies, Asian buyers have stepped into the market. Meanwhile, U.S. consumers have shied away from expensive coffee-shop drinks during the recession in favor of brewing at home.
Enthusiastic Japanese buyers fueled most of the new demand as the traditionally tea-drinking country goes through a gourmet coffee boom, Ric Rhinehart, executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America told Reuters.
"The auction season was better than anticipated," Rhinehart said.
"The roaster-retailer movement in Japan has gone through phenomenal growth in the last 18 or 20 months ... They've pursued the super top quality coffee pretty hard," Rhinehart said.
Every year a niche clientele of specialty roasters bids on small lots of top quality coffee grown at the highest altitudes under prime conditions at online auctions.
Recession-hit U.S. buyers struggled this year, limited by tight credit and were aggressively outbid or decided to skip this year's auctions in favor of buying directly from specialty farms.
"The U.S. market was significantly absent," said Susie Spindler, the executive director of the Cup of Excellence program, which auctioned more than $4.2 million in specialty coffees in 2008.
"Their willingness to pay kind of the top prices was certainly not as strong as some of the Asian and some of the European markets," Spindler said.
PRIZED "GEISHA" COFFEE
Specialty coffees from Costa Rica and Panama won higher prices this year at the auctions, led by Panama's well-known Hacienda La Esmeralda, whose "geisha" beans averaged more than $30 per pound.
La Esmeralda's most expensive lot of coffee sold for $117.50 per pound to Japan's Saza Coffee, nearing a 2007 record of $130 per pound.
The small family-owned farm in Panama's western mountains did not expect such high prices this year.
La Esmeralda's prices jumped from an average of $15.74 in 2008 to $31.21 in 2009 after the farm's harvest this season was halved due to harsh weather.
"We were very surprised," La Esmeralda's Daniel Peterson said.
This year's auction season showed top-end buyers are not backing down from paying top dollar for the world's most prized beans.
"The absolute upper end seems to be fine," said George Howell who owns the U.S.-based Terroir Coffee Company.
"Certain coffees that have really established themselves continue to sell," Howell said.