Tag: cafe blue

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Can Blockchain improve Jamaica coffee, after all Starbucks wants to use it.

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Fake luxury coffee hurts everyone in the supply chain. So knowing whether your beans are actually from a farm in the hills of Jamaica Blue Mountains is meaningful. Nowadays avoiding fakes requires buying brands you trust. And overtime one gets familiar with the origin taste profiles.  But that’s knowledge built from experience. What about someone buying Jamaica coffee for the first time and concerned about getting ripped off with fake JBM costing upwards of US$50 per pound.

One solution is to buy through curated platforms like Etsy or brokers like us which micro tests batches monthly to ensure customers get quality.

Soon there will be another way.

Last year Starbucks announced plans to use Blockchain with the aim of allowing consumers to in real time trace the origin of the bean. Ultimately as a method of  improving pricing throughout the supply chain. This method however more work but the outcome will definitely be replicated throughout the luxury coffee market.

Blockchain creates an immutable ledger of all transactions sort of like an email thread. You can quickly go back to the origin of a concept by searching the tread.  Blockchain is increasingly being implemented in many back-office processes at industries from traditional banking and insurance, extending its application to even food production and pharmaceutical industries. Walmart in 2018, along with the support of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), reportedly adopted a programme that uses blockchain to digitize the food supply chain process with its pork suppliers. Consequently it takes roughly 2 seconds to trace the origin of food which aims to reduce chance of infected food entering the supply chain to customers.

In December 2019, the global blockchain technologies market was valued at about $2.01 billion in 2018, and is expected to grow to $9.97 billion at a rapid annual growth rate of more than 49% through 2022. Companies across various industries are increasingly investing in block chain technology due to its high efficiency in data management.

Blockchain technology is growing strongly in major sectors such as healthcare, banking and finance, digital assets, and also in several government departments. Thus, companies such as VISA, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon are investing in the technology to integrate blockchain with their daily operations at an early stage.

 

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Best time to visit cafes in Liguanea, Kingston

Coffee lovers in the Liguanea coffee zone of Kingston need to know the best time to get a cup of coffee.

The three most popular cafes in Liguanea actually have different high and low periods and its not necessarily what you think.
The high periods are 11am at Cafe Blue, 11 at Cannonball and noon at Starbucks, that’s according to Google spy information.
It means that if you like people watching go to Cafe Blue at 11 and make your rounds to other cafes by noon.
Conversely, the best time to run in for a coffee without long lines would be 6am Starbucks, 8 am at Cannonball and 7pm at Cafe Blue.
So for all those Airbnb visitors with nothing to do mid day or players with the perfect pick-up lines avoid the mornings.cafes high and low periods 2019
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cess on coffee imports to Jamaica contemplated

The Coffee regulator in Jamaica reportedly wants to further tax coffee imports to fund local production.

The Coffee Industry Board Jamaica (CIB) said the cess would finance local farmers.

“This recommendation to the minister was made after extensive consultations with the stakeholders in the coffee industry. The minister has publicly expressed his agreement with the proposal and he will, at the appropriate time and place, announce the amount of the cess and how it will be applied,” the CIB reportedly indicated to local media.

Jamaica’s coffee production has fallen to less than 200,000 boxes annually from a high of more than 500,000 boxes in 2004.

Jamaica Blue Mountain remains in short supply due to a confluence of factors now led by fires and the berry borer disease. Coffee exports totaled some US$13 million last year down from some US$25 million in  pre-crisis levels.

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Marley Coffee Laments coffee price hike

The price of Jamaica Blue Mountain (JBM) coffee jumped 40 per cent in real terms in a year based which worries Marley Coffee.

Coffee remains scarce based on a confluence of factors now led by summer drought which killed beans.

“We are committed to ensuring our supply chain and providing our customers JBM. We are diligently working to secure more JBM as the market we created for it continues to expand. There still is a high demand for JBM in North America, but limited supply and rising costs may hurt sales,” stated Marley Coffee to its investors this month in filings to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. 

The sale of JBM beans largely gives the brand prestige, as the majority of Marley Coffee sales are from cheaper coffee growing regions outside of Jamaica.The company bought US$290,000 worth of JBM over nine-months ending October or two-thirds less than a year ago, financials state.

“We are currently working to address the supply issues and while we believe we will be in a far better position in Fiscal 2015 with respect to JBM availability,” noted the company.

Over nine-months the company recorded a US$7.8 million net loss from US$6.7 million in coffee sales or three times higher losses than a year earlier. Part of the losses are the result of payments to executives at Marley Coffee which surpassed US$1 million over three-months.

Marley Coffee based in Denver, USA, recently gained distribution in over 5,000 stores in North America, with plans to enter 10,000 stores.

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Kingston Coffee Culture

Ten new cafes opened in Kingston over the last 12 months.
Its a record number of cafes in the struggling Jamaican economy. Moreover the city didn’t even drink quality coffee until recently. The farms instead chose to export the best grades to Japan and most Jamaicans drink cheap instant shit.
Reduced export earnings forced farms to find new markets and that new market is domestic. It has resulted in the Starbucks culture finally brewing its way into the island even without a phsyical store presence.
Kingston now probably has about 15-20 proper cafes. Many are within hotels but also on every decent mall. The owner of one of the pioneering cafes said: “Where are most of these cafes now. I expect them to continue disappearing in a year”.