He does a two-episode deep dive into the Kenyan coffee market here, which is worth a listen: https://timwendelboe.no/2024/03/inside-kenyas-coffee-market-...
https://timwendelboe.no/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/T_Wendelb...
https://www.gottahaverockandroll.com/ItemImages/000025/jul18...
Robusta coffees are much more popular across Asia, and there is a preference to mix coffee with milk.
In Europe and the US, there is a preference to drink Arabica coffee neat.
Starbucks had to pivot away from coffee to tea in India for that reason, and Starbucks in Vietnam failed due to their Arabica heavy bias [0] (also, Coffee shops in VN tend to also serve an equally robust Tea menu, which Starbucks fails at)
There are some solid coffee purist shops in D3, but the average consumer prefers Highland, Phuc Long, or Trung Nguyen Legend style shops and mixed coffees.
That said, the same problem mentioned in the blog above are slowly manifesting in VN as well. My in-laws are/were coffee farmers in Gia Lai, but they and their peers have pivoted to nuts like Macadamias instead because margins are better and Coffee is too commoditized
> I've seen a Vietnamese coffee brand from Amazon with fancy branding but my bet is still shitty coffee
Yep.
VN has a good FMCG market now, but they don't really target the US for exports.
Economic reforms and cutting down bureaucracy are certainly part of the solution, but "just wait a bit longer" is too. If things continue progressing as they currently are, Nairobi will look a lot more like Seoul by mid-century.
Beginning in 1975, largely parallel with the coffee crisis in East Germany, the production of Robusta coffee began in Vietnam. Robusta plants grow faster, contain more caffeine, suit the climate of the Vietnamese Central Highlands, and lend themselves better to mechanized harvesting.
Roastful is trying to apply a similar methodology to coffee roasting, by polling 32 industry experts.
And, the #1 roaster in their rankings this year is Tim Wendelboe.
You can debate the method, but it's not total wankery.
"...sources suggest that 6 million Kenyans are employed directly or indirectly in the coffee industry."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_production_in_Kenya
Also:
"Over half a million Kenyan smallholder farmers are farming coffee. But they only produce 2 to 3 kilograms of cherry per tree on average, while there is a potential of over 30 kilograms per tree. This low productivity, coupled with low prices and high costs for labour and fertilizer, make it extremely difficult for smallholder farmers to mitigate or adapt to climate change, invest in good practices, access markets and attract competitive prices. And in the end, the whole coffee value chain in Kenya is at risk."
https://www.solidaridadnetwork.org/news/coffee-sustainabilit...
Poverty isn't necessarily exploitation. The situation of Bangladesh would not be improved if every wealthier nation was suddenly sucked into the sea. In fact, the situation of Bangladesh would become considerably worse.
Bangladesh has grown rapidly by selling clothing to rich countries, and through the work of NGOs. Supposing we put a forcible stop to this "exploitation" by placing sanctions on Bangladesh, so no one can trade with it, and kicking out all of the NGOs. Bangladesh becomes much poorer.
>Colonialism benefited colonial nations, because of course it did. It wouldn't have been done if it wasn't beneficial.
According to an old European history textbook I read: Once you take into account the costs of conquest, infrastructure, and administration, plus the opportunity for colonial administrators to take a cut on the sly (since the monarch was thousands of miles away), colonies weren't profitable on net. Supposedly the Brits did colonialism first, and other European countries followed in Britain's footsteps because "that's what an industrialized nation does".
Do you believe Putin's invasion of Ukraine makes economic sense? I don't think that's what motivates him.
The invention of the map might be the deadliest invention in history. To paraphrase Carl Sagan: "Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could momentarily color a small additional part of their map with their nation's color."
>unprecedented improvement in material well-being in certain parts of the world, namely the colonizer nations
Compare a per capita GDP ranking of European countries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eu...
With a ranking of the largest empires:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires
The top 10 per capita wealthiest countries in Europe, from Wikipedia, are: Luxembourg, Ireland, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, San Marino, Iceland, Belgium, Austria.
The top 10 largest European colonial empires, based on my skim, belonged to: Britain, Russia, Spain, France, Portugal, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Belgium.
There's just not much of a relationship.
I'm only learning about the history of economics myself. It seems a lot of people interpret Adam Smith as advocating against any government intervention, even in the case of price-fixing. For example: https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/regulation-industry/misreadin...
I'm not convinced that it's deliberate. You can draw a parallel with free speech: is it about letting anyone say whatever they want, however loudly, as much as they want? Or is it about ensuring that everyone has a voice, i.e. preventing the loud people from drowning out or otherwise intimidating the quiet ones. You could well argue for the latter, but many people in the West assume it means the former.
Side note:
I rarely drank coffee (or tea, although I do drink tea again, somewhat, nowadays).
I used to drink Indian-style milk tea almost daily, earlier, in school, college, and later.
So once, some years ago, when I walked into a Cafe Coffee Day [1] shop (an Indian coffee shop chain, possibly modeled on Starbucks), and after looking at the menu, ordered a macchiato. it was a pleasant surprise to find that it tasted very good. :)
(I had nothing against coffee, it was a common drink at home, growing up, the filter coffee [2] kind, but also Nescafe and Bru, just that I did not prefer it much, later.)
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_Coffee_Day
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_filter_coffee
Filter coffee has kind of cult status in some states of South India.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=cWvT
Also, 25% of homes in 1950 didn't have indoor toilets. It was very much not modern quality housing.
Note, more households in the US own their home now than they did in 1984. (I don't have numbers on this one back to the 50s.)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USHOWN
Fear about this is possibly suppressed memories of the 2008 recession, which was really bad!
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2024/sum...
https://someunpleasant.substack.com/p/a-nobel-prize-for-an-i...
Yes, colonialism was not profitable. They did it because we hadn't invented modernity yet so we didn't know how to be profitable.
One reason "Britain" (the UK) exists is that Scotland tried to get into colonialism, bankrupted themselves, and had to sell themselves to England.
Generally speaking, getting a lot of resources is actually bad for your economy because it outstrips your ability to develop value-added businesses and institutions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
> Compare a per capita GDP ranking of European countries:
You're arguing with a Maoist (or someone who's been listening to them.) One thing about these people is that they believe Finland and Ireland are colonizers, because they just think all European countries are the same.
good one, bro.
now, walk the plank.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_the_plank
I'm sending you to Davy Jones' locker.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Jones%27s_locker
:)
jk
