The Royal Blog

As of this writing, the price of the most actively traded NY coffee futures contract (SEP23) sits at 155.80.  This is a 24 percent drop from the 6-month high of 205.25.  It is worth looking back over the past half year to see how we ended up at this level and also to better understand […]

Wild gyrations in the coffee market, and how to cope. If you’ve been watching the coffee market recently, you are doubtless aware of the massive decline in coffee futures prices on the Intercontinental Commodity Exchange (“ICE”, colloquially still known as the “New York ‘C’ Market,” or just “the C”). Since peaking at $2.30/lb on September […]

OK, the truth is that we’ve been receiving Ethiopian coffees for months now, but unless you are booking forward with us, you’ve likely not seen many, if any, available on our SPOT Offering List. This is because they’ve all been selling out in advance of arrival, or shortly thereafter. Happily, we are about to reach […]

Editor’s note: This update was a collaborative effort between Caitlin McCarthy-García, Max Nicholas-Fulmer, and Charlie Habegger.  On a global level, weather patterns in Brazil brought doubt to the world’s coffee supply in mid-2021; while in Kenya, labor and input costs on the farm remained ever high due to the pandemic. In Kenya specifically, movement of people […]

Taza Presidencial 2021  When:   This Friday, the auction for the 7th annual Taza Presidencial in Bolivia is taking place. It’s a virtual auction that opens Wednesday, Dec 8th with pre-bidding before wrapping up Friday morning with 10-minute bidding windows for each coffee.   History:   Taza Presidencial began in 2015 as part of a governmental effort to promote the specialty coffee of […]

Editor’s note: This article was first published in Roast Magazine’s Sep/Oct 2021 issue, and is reprinted here with permission. Author’s note: I remember the first time I talked to Felix Chambi of Cooperativa San Juan. It was a fall afternoon late in 2019; we had been texting back and forth and he decided to call. […]

About a month ago, I discussed some factors that led to the C market’s rise. Now that the C market has gone above the highs of the drought-driven market of 2014-15, I want to address our pricing specifically. While prices have increased due to freight and higher internal prices for cherry and parchment over the […]

The C market, as of October 14th, is trading at $2.09/lb, back to the levels reached immediately following the frost in Minas Gerais and other coffee regions of Brazil this past July. This is in spite of nearly ideal rainfall patterns in Brazil. Drought no longer seems to be a primary concern, although it remains […]

High Altitude Ethiopia: METAD The wait is over! We have some stellar offerings from METAD. METAD is a third-generation family-owned business managed by the Adinew brothers. Their high-altitude estate is blessed with […]