|
|
| OFFER! £8 for your personal choice of three samples of freshly roasted gourmet coffee, total 500gm |
 Retail
Prices About us History of
Coffee Roasting |
Trade Prices All about Tea Growing Coffee Drinking Coffee |
LINKS click here for fair trade foundation, organic farmers and growers, raw coffee prices, ethical junction, INK publishers, etc etc |
|---|
A Brief
History of Coffee
| Coffee appears to have originated in Yemen or Ethiopia and
certainly has an early presence around the Red Sea about AD 700.
Perhaps as a result on the prohibition of alcohol in Islam, by the 13th
and 14th centuries
coffee had become part of cultural life, particularly in the cities,
where
coffee shops multiplied rapidly. Coffee cultivation was rare until the
15th
and 16th centuries, when extensive planting of the tree occurred in the
Yemen region of Arabia. The popularity spread through Europe to such an
extent that during the 17th and 18th centuries there were more coffee
shops in London than there are today. Coffee shops then were
influential places, used extensively by artists, intellectuals,
merchants and bankers and a forum for political activities and
developments. Lloyd's of London, the worldwide reinsurance forum,
started as a coffee shop.
Large-scale cultivation was pioneered by the Dutch in their colonies in the 17th century. The British and French followed, exploiting the tropical climate and peoples of the colonies to start one of the world's biggest trades. In recent years the ecology and welfare of growing areas has become of more concern. Better trading deals are being negotiated through the Fairtrade movement, and organically grown coffee is set to increase its market share radically. The tea and coffee plant stocks a wide |
range of fair trade and organic coffees (in practice they are
often concurrent). Currently, due to the low market value of coffee, it
is particularly important for those who care to select fair trade
coffees.
Coffee has always been subject to crop failures, particularly
as it is dominated by Brasil where commercial monoculture operates in
areas liable to frost and drought. In an attempt to prevent the ensuing
violent price fluctuations, and to guarantee an income to third world
producers, the idea of establishing coffee export quotas on a worldwide
basis was adopted in 1962, when an
International Coffee Agreement was negotiated by the United Nations.
The
agreement was renegotiated in 1968, 1976, and 1983. The advent of
neo-liberal
policies in Washington and Brasil's insistence that they should
maintain
a high quota, led to a
breakdown however, and participating nations failed to sign a new pact
in
1989. Since then green or raw coffee has been at low prices with a
fillip in the late nineties. Even Fairtrade and organic coffee is very
cheap by historical standards. Our prices have not risen for years. Currently the decline in the dollar has helped to keep prices
down. |
the tea and coffee plant180 Portobello Road, London W11 2EB
tel 020 7221 8137 retail shop
020 7221 8137 mail order and wholesale
coffee@pro-net.co.uk