The next new ‘origin’ to appear in the world coffee market is likely to be China, with Starbucks having made a decision to invest in coffee growing and processing in the country.  It is probably not a coincidence that Starbucks has already identified China as its biggest potential growth market.

There is already a history of some coffee-growing in China, according to the most notable British importers.“It is a reasonable if not fantastic quality Arabica,” says Stephen Hurst of Mercanta. “We can expect a low-cost, reasonable bean for blending, suitable for the likes of Starbucks and Nestle – eventually I am sure that we will see some superior qualities.”

Ian Breminer of Complete Coffee points out that China already has several soluble coffee processing plants, in addition to those in the country belonging to Nestle and Kraft.  “Yunnan province has been producing for many years, and, in my opinion it is an obvious step for China to become a big producer.  The big question is that if the Chinese Government decides to really support the growing of coffee and it is taken up, is there anything to stop China becoming number two or number three after Brazil and Vietnam in the next ten years? No, and maybe the coffee industry needs this to happen because many of the traditional growers are having problems… and otherwise we will have a shortage of coffee, prices will rise again and that will cause all sorts of problems.

“Starbucks has been the most vociferous in saying that prices have to fall, so to become part of the solution to the problem makes sense from their point of view.”