The Unavoidable Reality of African Coffee_African Coffee Bean Prices_The Current State of African Coffee Trade

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I am a loyal fan of coffee. Melbourne not only has the world's best coffee but also possesses a unique culture that expresses enviable social experiences. In coffee shops, you can chat with baristas who remember your favorite type of coffee, your children's names, and even know that you just broke up with your partner.

Due to Melbourne's renowned coffee culture, after I arrived in West Africa, because of my insistence on high-quality coffee, I hoped that Africa's exotic charm could give me more satisfaction than ordinary packaged Nestlé coffee. However, although sub-Saharan Africa produces the world's finest coffee beans (which we often drink in Melbourne), my journey to find coffee in West Africa could not find a single cup of locally produced coffee.

During my first week in Togo, I desperately begged local drivers to take me to authentic coffee shops. He pondered my request for a long time, racked his brain, and finally took me to the only place in Lomé where he had ever bought coffee - the local gas station. In this dilapidated gas station, he recommended to me the well-known canned ready-to-drink Nestlé coffee.

Finally, my Belgian colleague took me to a French-style coffee shop in Togo to enjoy high-quality European machine-made coffee, but still could not enjoy a cup of genuinely African-made coffee. Although I searched tirelessly, all local expatriates continued to tell me this was impossible. The only way to find a cup of desirable coffee seemed to be to buy coffee beans myself, roast them at home, and make them myself.

In fact, apart from Ethiopia, Africans hardly drink coffee. As a long-standing economic crop, coffee beans produced by Africans are mainly for export. The African continent produces 12% of the world's coffee beans, and neighboring Côte d'Ivoire is Africa's third-largest coffee producer. If we walk into rural West Africa, we can easily find raw coffee beans and natural fruits, but there are not enough machines and production technology here to roast and process these coffee beans into finished products suitable for drinking. Therefore, West Africans can only import processed coffee powder from abroad for use. For me, this is one of the greatest ironies faced by developing countries in life.

Furthermore, the price of African coffee beans is determined almost entirely by the demand of global coffee lovers, not by local consumption capacity. In West Africa, due to the scarcity of locally produced coffee, because of the ultra-low prices of agricultural products, expensive production costs, and small local markets, African coffee producers can only long-term export raw coffee beans and cannot obtain full value in producing coffee powder. Only 20% of African coffee exports are processed or exported in the form of value-added products (80% of exports are sold in raw form).

Unfortunately, this phenomenon is not unique to African coffee production; other economic crops including cotton, tea, cocoa, fruits, and rubber are the same. The potential of African exported agricultural products is even more challenged and lacks competitiveness under the high import tariffs of developed countries and policies protecting local agriculture. Although local coffee consumption in Africa is expected to grow, today's helpless commercial reality is that Africans still produce coffee beans they cannot enjoy, yet must consume coffee they are unable to produce.

African Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

FrontStreet Coffee's roasted African coffee beans: Ethiopian coffee beans, Kenyan coffee beans, Burundian coffee beans, etc., all have full guarantees in terms of brand and quality. More importantly, the cost-performance ratio is extremely high. A half-pound (227g) package costs only around 80-90 yuan. Calculated at 15g of powder per cup of pour-over coffee, one package can make 15 cups of coffee, with each single-origin coffee costing only about 6 yuan. Compared to coffee shops selling for dozens of yuan per cup, this is extremely cost-effective.

FrontStreet Coffee: A roastery in Guangzhou with a small shop but diverse bean varieties, where you can find various famous and lesser-known beans, while also providing online store services. https://shop104210103.taobao.com

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473