Motasem K. - Oct 2020
Why Yemeni Coffee is Expensive?
There are common reasons for expensive coffee in the world. From the rarity, unique taste, or even "special" processing as in luwak or elephant dung!
For Yemeni coffee, it has all this and more!
The War. Yemen has been in continuous was for decades from civil wars to current proxy war! Besides the tragedy of war on everyone one's life, the logistic cost exponentially rise.
The remoteness of the village. Although this might be similar to other regions, the fact there is no proper transport infrastructure in Yemen, make the only option for transporting coffee is 4*4 vehicles.
Processing. The rarity of water, mills and processing stations, leave Yemeni farmer with very limited processing options. His rooftop to dry the beans while being sun-kissed. (read more https://sufimonks.com/pages/unveiling-a-new-cup-of-coffee)
Although the above are contributing to the Yemeni coffee price. Many believe that The Agriculture side is the main reason!
Beside geographical uniqueness of Yemen, basic mills and poor hauling machines contribute on this low yields. While other countries can get 1kg of dried beans from every 6kg red cherries, Yemen farms ratio is 10:1*.
Yemen coffee farms yields are the lowest in the world. For example, if you take a farm in Ethiopia with size X and the number of coffee tress Y the coffee yield from the same farm in Yemen will be 10X less!**
That's why the future of Yemeni coffee reside mainly on the evolution of the agriculture there. This why in Sufi Monks we only works with importers and mills that invest in Yemen agriculture infrastructure. We believe this will increase the productivity of Yemeni coffee and offer farmers a fairly trade to their primary source of income.
*Read more detailed information
** Info credit : Qima Coffee videos
