Coffee producers chase the high (Financial Times)

The “morning coffee ritual” is spreading through the world.As the aroma of the freshly brewed beverage reaches markets such as China, and consumption skyrockets in producing nations such as Brazil, the global coffee industry is witnessing a boom that could reshape the market and lead to higher prices.
For centuries, poor farmers in Africa and Latin America have grown the commodity to satisfy the daily caffeine fix of rich consumers in the US, Japan and western Europe.
While the so-called traditional markets remain central to the industry, markets in Asia, Africa and Latin America are increasingly important...(READ MORE)

Assefa brewing a market for Ethiopian coffee farmers

"In Ethiopia, coffee is like wine is to the French," Assefa said. "It's a ritual."
 
At the tender age of 15, Tebabu Assefa fled his well-to-do home in his native city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, disguised as a peasant boy.
He sought to escape the chaos, executions and imprisonments that followed the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie's government by a military junta in the mid-1970s.
"A lot of students were talking about going to the jungle and organizing a violent rebellion," said Assefa, 50, one of the first business owners to incorporate through Maryland's benefit corporation law that started in the fall. "People were being arrested and killed. I lost some friends but not family members. ... It was just too crazy of a time."
So without his parents' knowledge, he and a few friends made it out to Kenya, where he stayed with a friend and finished high school. Assefa assumed he'd return home in a year or two, but he said the situation in Ethiopia deteriorated. He later moved to the Netherlands and Italy, finally immigrating to the U.S. in 1980.
On a trip home in 2003, he befriended coffee farmers, who he said are poor and are paid in pennies while some coffee brands sell for $13 or more per pound in local stores...Read more