A Cup of Black Coffee

choi

彼得·戴, 记者来鸿：寻她记 — 这杯咖啡味道好极了. BBC Chinese, Apr 17, 2015
www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/fooc ... ooc_colombia_coffee

, which is translated from

Peter Day, Colombia: Home of the Perfect Cup of Coffee?  BBC, Apr 12, 2015.
www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32219604

My comment:
(a) I do not drink coffee, so can not offer independent judgment on the merits of the report.

(b) "I remember the dark auction room in the Brazilian port of Santos where the traders met to spar over the latest market offerings"
(i) Santos, São Paulo
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santos,_São_Paulo
(founded in 1546; home to the Coffee Museum, where coffee prices were once negotiated; Pelé played for Santos Futebol Clube; about 79 km (49 mi) from the metropolis São Paulo, capital of the state São Paulo)
(ii) That was then. This is now.

Coffee FAQ. Global Exchange (an international human rights organization), undated
www.globalexchange.org/fairtrade/coffee/faq
("Coffee is the US's largest food import and second most valuable commodity only after oil. * * * [Q: How are coffee prices currently set?] Coffee prices are set according to the New York 'C' Contract market. * * * Most coffee is traded by speculators in New York, who trade approximately 8-10 times the amount of actual coffee produced each year. The single most influential factor in world coffee prices is the weather in Brazil")
(iii) Coffee 'C.' Intercontinental Exchange(ICE), undated
www.theice.com/publicdocs/ICE_Coffee_Brochure.pdf
(since ICE's acquisition of New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) in 2007; the exchange offers futures and options on futures on soft commodities including cotton, cocoa, frozen concentrated orange juice, sugar and Coffee 'C,' a contract based on Arabica (as opposed to Robusta) coffee")

choi

(c) "I remember the not very interesting coffee I had years later in Saigon, after the United Nations taught an emerging Vietnam how to grow coffee and their exports were soon equalling the global oversupply of beans on the world market, depressing prices for growers everywhere."
(i) BBC translation: 我没有忘记，许多年以后曾经在西贡喝过一杯不太值得圈点的咖啡。当时，联合国向新兴国家越南传授咖啡种植方法，没多久，越南出口产品大批流入国际市场，导致咖啡价格下跌。
(ii) But the English original says world's oversupply was exactly the same amount of coffee that Vietnam exported, which the translation fails to point out.


(d) "When coffee-growing nations met to try to agree on export quotas to keep prices from falling, I remember the exquisite coffee they used to serve at the International Coffee Organization, a sort of OPEC for coffee-growing nations with its headquarters just round the corner from the BBC's Broadcasting House in London."

Actually it is not so sinister.
(i) International Coffee Organization
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Coffee_Organization
(ICO; Its establishment in 1963 in London "was a result of the five-year [to expire after 5 years, but has since been renewed with successive agreements] International Coffee Agreement signed in 1962 at the UN in New York and renegotiated in 1968, 1976, 1983, 1994 and 2007 at the ICO in London. As of 2014, its 45 members consist of 39 exporting nations, 6 importing nations and 1 importing community (the European Union)"

The "History" page in its official website says something similar to the quotation.
(ii) Economics of Coffee. Black Gold, a film by Nick and Marc Francis, undated
blackgoldmovie.com/economics-of-coffee
("The success of the International Coffee Agreements was owed in part to the United States, who helped to enforce the quota system in an effort to prevent communism from destabilizing poor Latin American countries")

choi

(e) "And demand is growing, for coffee everywhere. It's said to be the developing world's second most valuable traded commodity, outstripped only by oil."
(i) Go to the Web. and the saying is not “developing world’s” but “world’s.”  The cautious add “legally” to become “world’s second most valuable legally traded commodity.”
(ii) [Coffee] Facts & Stats. In Frontline: World. PBS, undated
www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/guatemala.mexico/facts.html
(" The Coffee Economy[:] Coffee is the world's second-most-valuable commodity exporting by developing countries, after oil. The global coffee industry earns an estimated $60 billion annually. Less than 10 percent of those earnings end up in the hands of coffee farmers")
(iii) The myth was debunked. See
Coffee second only to oil? Is coffee really the second largest commodity? Mark Pendergrast investigates and finds some startling results. Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, _: _ (_ _ _ _)
(A) The research paper is being sold in Amazon.com for $9.95. So, understandably the author (Mr Pendergrast) has taken it down from Entrepreneur.com.
(B) Here is the a pirated copy of the paper:
www.dimattinacoffee.com.au/blog/ ... d_largest_commodity
("This led me to the UN Comtrade website, which covers many different products (http://comtrade.un.org/pb/CommodityPages.aspx?y=2007). Sure enough, for the year 2007 (the latest available Comtrade tables), petroleum * * * lead [sic; should be leads] the pack at $1.09 trillion * * * 'coffee and coffee substitutes' for $22 billion")
(C) The updated (2013) version of UN data
comtrade.un.org/pb/CommodityPagesNew.aspx?y=2013
(No 071 "Coffee and coffee substitutes" and No 333 "Petroleum oils and oils obtained from bituminous minerals, crude")

choi

(f) "Like Marcel Proust tasting that little cake, the Madeleine, my cup of Finca la Soledad Urrao brought it all back. I happened to be in the city of Medellin in the hills of Colombia, the third largest coffee exporting nation in the world. Medellin is Colombia's second biggest city"
(i) "Finca la Soledad Urrao" is the name of a farm (called "la Soledad") in Urrao. Here is the
Finca La Soledad, Urrao. El Laboratorio de Café, undated
(in the right column: "Caficultor: Elpidio Arboleda Tabares[;] Altura: 1830 m.s.n.m")
ellaboratoriodecafe.com/finca-la-soledad-urrao/

* Both Arboleda and Tabares are his last names (the first from his father and the second/last from his mother. See Spanish naming customs
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_naming_customs
* In Spanish, msnm stands for "metros sobre el nivel del mar"--meters above sea level.
(ii) Spanish English dictionary
* finca (noun feminine): "farm"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/finca
* soledad (noun feminine; Latin solitās): "solitude"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/soledad
* caficultor (noun masculine; related: café): "coffee grower"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/caficultor
* altura (noun feminine; which is late Latin): "altitude"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/altura
* sobre (preposition; Latin [preposition] super above): "above"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sobre
* nivel (noun masculine; from Latin [noun feminine] libella "little bit," a tenth part of a denarius [a silver coin worth 10 libellae (remember: this is not an English noun, whose plural does not end with an "s")): "level"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nivel
(iii) Urrao
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urrao
(a town and municipality; in Colombia)
(iv) Medellín
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medellín
(section 1 Toponymy; section 3 Geography and climate: table)

choi

(g) Through extensive, and exhaustive, research (in Spanish dictionary and the Web), I found the meaning of "Finca la Soledad Urrao."  However, read on and the BBC report lets on the secret (but the uninitiated may not be able to discern): "Just like the coffee I was sipping as I looked out over Botero Plaza from the cafe called El Laboratorio de Cafe, the Coffee Laboratory, where they serve what is said to be some of the finest brews in this famed coffee region." BBC

(h) "A sudden rainstorm broke over this city of perpetual spring, as the Colombians call it."
(i) Check the section 3 table in (f)(iv).
(ii) Our Story. Devoción (based in Brooklyn, New York and Bogotá, Colombia), undated
devocion.com/pages/our-story
("Colombia is the only country in the world where coffee is a year-round crop. Typically there are two main crop seasons annually that vary depending upon which part of the country the grower is in. Nevertheless the knowledgeable roaster will be able to find a farm in harvest, or giving plenty of coffee, at any time of year. * * * Devoción was founded by Steven Sutton, a native of Medellín, Colombia")