All About Coffee, William H. Ukers [short story to read .txt] 📗
- Author: William H. Ukers
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The usual method in Brazil is for the fazendeiro (coffee-grower) or the commisario (commission merchant) to load his shipments of coffee at an interior railroad station. If his consignee is in Santos, he generally deposits the bill of lading with a bank and draws a draft, usually payable after thirty days, against the consignee. When the consignee accepts the draft, he receives the bill of lading, and is then permitted to put the coffee in a warehouse.
Storing at Santos
At Santos most of the storing is done in the steel warehouses of the City Dock Company, a private corporation whose warehouses extend for three miles along the waterfront at one end of the town. Railroad switches lead to these warehouses, so that the coffee is brought to storage in the same cars in which it was originally loaded up-country. The warehouses are leased by commisarios. There are also many old warehouses, built of wood, still operated in Santos, and to these the coffee is transferred from the railroad station either by mule carts or by automobile trucks.
At the receiving warehouses, samples of each bag are taken; the tester, or sampler, standing at the door with a sharp tool, resembling a cheese-tester, which he thrusts into the center of the bag as the men pass him with the bags of coffee on their heads, removing a double handful of the contents. The samples are divided into two parts; one for the seller, and one that the commisario retains until he has sold the consignment of coffee covered by that particular lot of samples.
The Disappearing Ensaccador
In the old days it was the custom every morning for the ensaccadores, or baggers, and the exporters or their brokers, to visit the commisarios' warehouses and to bargain for lots of coffee made up by the commisario.
In the Santos market, until recent years, the ensaccador, or coffee-bagger, often stood between the commisario and exporter. When American importing houses began to establish their own buying offices in the Brazilian ports (about 1910) to deal direct with the fazendeiro and the commisario, the gradual elimination of the ensaccador was begun. Today he has entirely disappeared from the Santos market, and is disappearing from Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, and Victoria.
Coffee reaches Santos in a mixed condition; that is, it has not been graded, or separated according to its various qualities. This is the work of the commisario, who puts each shipment into "lots" in new "official" bags, each of which bears a mark stating that the contents are São Paulo growth. If the coffee is offered for sale by the owner, the commisario will then put it on the "street," the section of Santos given over to coffee trading.
The commisario works with samples of the coffee he has to offer and only puts out one set at a time. He names his "asking" price, known locally as the pedido, which is the maximum rate he expects to get, but seldom receives. A set of samples may be shown to twenty-five or thirty exporting houses in a day, one at a time. When the sample is in the hands of a firm for consideration, no other exporter has the right to buy the lot even at the pedido price, and the commisario can not accept other offers until he has refused the bid. On the other hand, if a house refuses to give up the samples, it is understood that it is willing to pay the pedido price. The firm first offering a price acceptable to the commisario's broker gets the lot, even though other houses have offered the same price.
When a lot is sold, the samples are turned over to the successful bidder, and he then asks the commisario for larger samples for comparison with the first set.
Commisarios Make as High as Nine Percent
Having sold the coffee of a given planter, the commisario often gets as much as nine percent for his share of the transaction. Unless the bags have been furnished to the planter at a good rental, the coffee must be transferred to the commisario's bags; and for this the planter pays a commission.
Coffee From the Fazendas Is Delivered at the Commissarios' Warehouses in Rio
Interior of a Santos Cleaning and Grading Warehouse Interior of a Santos Cleaning and Grading Warehouse
PREPARING BRAZIL COFFEE FOR EXPORT
Grading Coffee at Santos Grading Coffee at Santos
Formerly the coffee, being rebagged by the ensaccador, was manipulated in what is called ligas; that is, mixing several neutral grades from various lots to create an artificial grade; or, more properly speaking, a "type," desirable for trading on the New York market.
Grading and Testing in Brazil
Having bought a lot of coffee, the exporter's next step is to grade and to test it. Grading is generally done in the morning and late afternoon, the hours from one to half-past four being devoted to making offers. The afternoon grading is done by sight. The morning examinations are more thorough, some progressive exporting houses even cup-testing the samples. Samples are compared with house standards, and with the requirements that have been cabled from the home office in the consuming country. Some of the coffee is roasted to obtain a standard by which all "chops" (varieties) are then graded and marked according to quality—fine, good, fair, or poor. Quality is further classified by the numerals from two to eight, which standards have been established on the New York Coffee and Sugar Exchange, and are described farther on in this chapter. Some traders also use the terms large or small bean; fair, good, or poor roasters; soft or hard bean; light or dark; and similar descriptive terms.
When a lot is ready for shipment overseas, the commisario stamps each bag with his identifying mark, to which the buyer or exporter adds his brand. If the commisario is ordered before eleven in the morning to ship a lot of coffee, he must be paid before three in the afternoon of the same day; if he receives the order after eleven, payment need not be made before three in the afternoon of the following day. Generally the terms of sale are full settlement in thirty days, less discount at the rate of six percent per annum for the unexpired time, if paid before the period of grace is up.
Dispatching and Capitazias
The exporter collects his money by drawing a draft against his client on deposit of bill of lading, cashing the draft through an exchange broker who deducts his brokerage fee. The exporter must obtain a consular invoice, a shipping permit from both federal and state authorities, and pay an export tax, before the coffee goes aboard the ship. This process is known as "dispatching," while the dock company's charges are known as capitazias.
In practically all coffee-growing sections the small planter is helped financially by the owners of processing plants or by the exporting firms. The larger planters may even obtain advances on their crops from the importing houses in New York, Havre, Hamburg, or other foreign centers.
The Exchange at Santos
A new coffee exchange began business at Santos on May 1, 1917, sitting with the Coffee Brokers Board of Control. This Board consists of five coffee brokers, four elected annually at a general meeting of the brokers of Santos, and one chosen annually by the president of the state of São Paulo. Among the duties of the Board are the classification and valuation of coffee, adjustment of differences, etc.
Hand & Rand Building: First Floor, Storage; Second Floor, Offices Hand & Rand Building: First Floor, Storage; Second Floor, Offices
NEW YORK COFFEE IMPORTERS' MODEL ESTABLISHMENT AT SANTOS
Pack-Mule Transport in Venezuela Pack-Mule Transport in Venezuela
Transporting Coffee to Points of Export
Transportation methods from plantation to shipside naturally vary with local topographical and economic conditions. In Venezuela, the bulk of the coffee is transported by pack-mule from the plantations and shipping towns to the head of the railroad system, and thence by rail to the Catatumbo River, where it is carried in small steamers down the river and across Lake Maracaibo to the city of Maracaibo. In Colombia, coffee is sent down the Magdalena River aboard small steamers direct to the seaboard. In Central America, transportation is one of the most serious problems facing the grower. The roads are poor, and in the rainy season are sometimes deep with mud; so much so that it may require a week to drive a wagon-load of coffee to the railroad or the river shipping point.
Buying Coffee in Abyssinia
Coffee is generally grown in Abyssinia by small farmers, who mostly finance themselves and sell the crop to native brokers, who in turn sell it to representatives of foreign houses in the larger trading centers. Trading methods between farmer and broker are not much more than the old system of barter. In the southwestern section, where the Abyssinian coffee grows wild, transport to the nearest trading center is by mule train, and not infrequently by camel back. In the Harar district, the women of the farmers living near Harar the market center, carry the coffee in long shallow baskets on their heads to the native brokers. In the more remote places the coffee farmer waits for the broker to call on him. From the town of Harar the coffee is transported by mule or camel train to Dire-Daoua, whence it is shipped by rail to Jibuti, to be sent by direct steamers to Europe, or across the Gulf of Aden to Aden in Arabia.
Coffee-Laden Oxen Fording Stream, Colombia
Ten different languages are spoken in Harar. In order successfully to engage in the coffee business there, it is necessary either to become proficient in all these tongues, or to engage some one who is.
Schooner from Encontrados to Maracaibo
Donkey Transport Train for Coffee in Mexico Donkey Transport Train for Coffee in Mexico
COFFEE TRANSPORT IN MEXICO AND SOUTH AMERICA
When the coffee is brought, partially cleaned, into Harar by donkey or mule train, it is first taken to the open air custom-house (coffee exchange) in the center of the town, where a ten-percent duty (in coffee) is exacted by the local government, and one Abyssinian dollar (fifty cents) is added for every thirty-seven and a half pounds, this latter being Ras Makonnen's share. As soon as the native dealer has released to him what remains of his shipment, he takes it out of the custom-house enclosure and disposes of
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