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Green Beans or Soluble Coffee Solutions India’s ITC – Agri Business Division is a One-Stop Shop

By Heneage Mitchell

 ITC is one of India’s largest and most respected companies. It’s Agri-Business Division’s involvement and commitment to India’s agricultural sector has always been a corner stone of its success and its experience and reputation remains unrivalled. The company currently purchases around 30,000 tons of coffee annually, split about 50/50 between export and domestic markets.

ITC has always believed in the potential of Indian coffee, which is why it is deeply imbedded in the supply chain, supplying product most of the instant coffee manufacturers, exporters, traders and even to small roasters in India. The focus has always been to understand the needs, specific grade requirements and quality aspects of each and every customer and then offer a customized solution..

Currently, export efforts are focused on the Middle East with green beans in 10kgs to 50kg packaging, and ITC has captured the market’s attention with good packaging, traceability and consistent quality. Smaller European trading houses also buy coffee from ITC.

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Rooibos The Red Bush of the Western Cape

By Heneage Mitchell

Hundreds of years ago, the local inhabitants of South Africa’s Western Cape, a mountainous, sandy region, identified a particular bush out of thousands of similar plants as having magical and tasty properties. The stems and leaves, when boiled in water, made a satisfying, flavourful and healthy drink. They began harvesting the wild plant, incorporating it into their diet. Early explorers noted its use as long ago as 1773, by which time its use was firmly established among local people.

The plant, one of over 200 local species belonging to the Aspalathus group of the legume family, grows only in the Cedarberg area of the Western Cape, 250km north of Cape Town, and no alternative source of supply of this unique product is available anywhere in the world. The bush, with its stem branching out into offshoots bearing delicate branches, which appear red when mature, with soft, green needle-like leaves sprouting 10cm or so from them, we now know as Aspalathus linearis, or rooibos (literally, red bush).

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Wake Up to a New Taste

By Marc Tomo 

Who am I? A Homo coffea universalis, a new species emerging in this world that perceives coffee through a holistic view, trying to comprehend the underlying structures of the coffee crisis by joining the dots in the coffee "community", and exploring new avenues for positive change. I have a passion for coffee, and a passion for people. Not just coffee or people but coffee grown, processed, retailed, brewed and finally drunk by people with a vision for future generations and respect for nature and planet Earth.

The idea behind this article came during my visit to the Tea & Coffee World Cup held in Hyderabad, India, last November 20-22. While reading the program, and particularly the coffee symposiums, somehow I expected from the presentations a message of hope and inspiration about the global coffee industry and its economic and ecological implications from the speakers, an understanding of coffee from a more integral approach, where consumers’ and producers’ lifestyles are more in balance with the natural resources on which they depend, resulting in achieving a perfect cup of java.

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Advances at Ahlstrom

The humble tea bag has been undergoing a make-over recently, increasingly finding its way into the specialty and value-added segments with a range of innovations and developments geared to servicing the growing upper-end of the market. Ahlstrom’s recent offering promises to fuel further interest and solutions in an industry that does not typically garner a lot of attention from consumers.

"Ahlstrom’s latest foray into the tea bag segment is not a departure from traditional core infusion filter paper business, it is an addition to the range," Michael D. Black, general manger of Ahlstrom’s food product line told Tea & Coffee Asia.

The new fine fiber web product providing eco-friendly polymer designs ideal for pyramid tea bags, was officially launched at the recent Tea & Coffee World Cup/ASIA 2008 exhibition held in Hyderabad, India, last November 20-22.

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