Whether as a morning pick-me-up, a relaxed afternoon ritual or simply as an energy boost: many people cannot imagine their everyday life without coffee. The popular drink began its triumphal march at the beginning of the 17th century. He conquered Europe from Africa and the Orient and a real coffee house culture developed, especially in Vienna. The first coffee house in Germany was built in Bremen around 1673. In the 18th century, the colonial powers finally spread the coffee plant all over the world and our coffee became an important economic factor worldwide.
In Europe, above all, the rich citizens loved to enjoy the caffeinated drink. They had coffee beans imported via important ports such as Amsterdam, Venice, Hamburg and London, so coffee houses were increasingly established in the cities. These became places of intellectual exchange for the upper classes.
Coffee is conquering the German economy
Germany was not one of the colonial powers, so it took almost 100 years before coffee finally arrived in Germany. Here, too, it was above all a luxury good that remained unaffordable for the common people. After the opening of the first coffee house in Bremen and its move four years later to the Hanseatic city of Hamburg, coffee gradually caught on in all social classes. Since the middle of the 19th century and the new technical processing of the coffee beans, coffee has been considered a popular drink: The ever-increasing demand made coffee more and more important as an economic factor.
Coffee – development into a global economic factor
Coffee is heavily traded in all countries due to its popularity. At the forefront are Germany, the USA and Brazil as coffee consumers. Cultivation takes place above all in emerging countries near the equator: Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia, Colombia and Ethiopia, with the latter being the country of origin of the coffee bean.
Around 148 million sacks of coffee beans are produced annually (as of 2016) and more than half a million tons of coffee are sold in Germany every year. This means that every citizen consumes 6.4 kilograms of coffee beans every year. Without coffee as an economic factor, there would quickly be serious financial crises in the emerging and developing countries: More than 25 million people work in the coffee industry worldwide, which at the same time forms the livelihood of around 100 million people and is an important mainstay for the whole world is.
Fight the economic insecurities of coffee producers with Fairtrade coffee
The growing economic factor of coffee not only brings good figures: negative reports about production and conditions often come from the producing countries. And even if the trend is increasingly towards fair trade and organic coffee, this part of production has so far only accounted for just under 1.5 percent of cultivation.
Nevertheless, Fairtrade coffee is becoming more and more of an important topic, especially in Germany fair trade is getting a place in people’s consciousness. Even though Fairtrade coffee has its price, people are happy to pay for it to protect small farmers from exploitation and unfair plantation work. Since the economic factor of coffee plays an important role, especially in the poorer producing countries, Fairtrade coffee is an important further development in this context.
