The Ongoing Commodity Coffee Price Crisis and the Mercanta Price Guarantee

Mercanta’s Stephen Cornford takes a journey to Peru: 11,265 km long and, 2,500m high.

From July 9 – 17, 2016, Mercanta was honoured to be invited to Rwanda by our good friends, RWASHOSCCO, to help them celebrate 10 years of producing specialty coffee. Mercanta’s Raphael Prime and Jamie Marler were joined by our guests, Andrew Tolley of Taylor St., Diana Palmer of Red Roaster, Jorge Alberto from Origin South Africa and Steve Leighton of Has Bean.

Mercanta celebrated our 20th anniversary in style during this year's SCAE World of Coffee show in Dublin.

“We have drawn a line in the sand which not many have dared to do. All our business is done on a fixed price, above the cost of production.” For the everyday high street coffee trader, the matter of coffee pricings is a minefield… indeed, probably something to stay well away from. And yet, nobody

We are glad to launch Mercanta of the Americas, formerly known as Mercanta Central America. This much expanded operation will be overseen by Christian Schaps, who will be responsible for looking after a number of origins in the region. The aim of MoA is to make it more accessible to search for fine coffees as

A recent visit revealed the variety of different ways Rwandan coffee makes its way to our cupping table. Back at the end of May, our lovely coffee huntress Jo, travelled to Rwanda with Melbourne Coffee Merchant’s equally delightful Fleur and Jenni to source wonderful coffees and strengthen the relationships we have built up there over

Mercanta have joined forces with Café Pacas, to reach beyond the coffee plantations and put the proceeds from coffee back into communities in El Salvador. After an initial donation early last year, we decided to continue our support of two schools sponsored by Café Pacas. By donating 10p from the sale of every 1kg of

While farmers across Colombia have been blocking roads and causing general disruption in a widespread protest over low prices, Mercanta are getting to know the growers in order to offer them a viable outlet for their specialty product. After establishing a sourcing office in Medellin, Colombia in 2011, Mercanta has spent the past 18 months

Each Christmas Mercanta sponsors a charitable project in one of the coffee-producing origins we work with. This year we decided to support FUNPRES, a not-for-profit organisation that runs support and prevention programmes for victims of child abuse in El Salvador. We have just received a report back on the project’s progress… FUNPRES (short for ‘Fundación

On Friday 23rd November we held our first off site invitational cupping day at one of the UK’s leading specialist coffee shops, Colonna & Small’s in Bath. We had a great turnout from roasters based in the South West and I’m sure that everyone enjoyed this opportunity to put faces to names and companies. We

1850km in a 1 litre Fiat Uno; Brazil is nothing if not huge. Starting in Sao Paulo, this trip took me to Pedregulho on the Sao Paulo/Minas Gerais border, then Pocos de Caldas, Santo Antonio do Amparo, Areado in Minas Gerais, then back to Pocos and finally Sao Paulo. Two weeks, dozens of farms, cupping

At the end of May I was back in Rwanda to visit our suppliers and do some cupping ahead of this year’s crop. As ever I was blown away by the hospitality of my hosts and the beauty of this fantastically green country. The washing stations that we work with are based in the north,

Despite having de-commoditised the specialty coffee business many years ago, Mercanta does not exist in a vacuum. Events in the wider commodity coffee world are coming to visit the specialty coffee world, and they are coming quickly. Commodity coffee prices at $2.50/lb are the highest in 13 years. This, in itself, is a newsworthy item.

This year’s coffee hunter field trip headed to colourful Bahia in northern Brazil – a diverse and sometimes overlooked growing area, with some huge potential for distinctive specialty lots. We were lucky to take a talented cameraman with us, who made this film of the week – we hope it will help show what Mercanta

While in Tanzania for the EAFCA conference I took the opportunity to visit Michael and Tina Gehrken at Blackburn Estate. This extraordinary farm is perched high on the slopes of the Ngorongoro Crater – reached from Arusha via a vertiginous ascent of the Rift Valley wall and a final spine-jarring half hour along a dirt

A dozen intrepid coffee hunters gathered in Medan, Sumatra, at the end of November for a field trip to Indonesia’s largest coffee-producing island. The group spent ten days visiting coffee growing regions in Aceh and North Sumatra provinces. Our host was our excellent milling partner -PT Sarimakmur – who Mercanta has been working with for

Our most recent cupping event was a great success. As usual we cupped three tables of coffees: two tables of twelve and one of thirteen. The aim of this autumn’s event was to look at new crop coffees due in later this year – including the latest Brazilians, Indians, Tanzanians, Ethiopians and Indonesians – alongside

We are delighted to report that July’s Invitational Cupping Day was a great success. The aim was to showcase our new crop Central Americans, as well as to see how some existing lots from our inventory are holding up. We also couldn’t pass up the chance to taste some of our most recent African coffees

The 2009 Cup of Excellence report made for interesting reading. Last year Mercanta was officially the biggest single buyer of COE in the world outside Asia. Statistical proof of our commitment to paying a premium for the world’s best coffees! Mercanta bought a total of 14 COE lots in 2009, topping the non-Asian chart of