While Japan's economic woes have knocked the beans out of other commodities, demand for coffee has gone from good to better and looks set to hit a record high this year, a Japanese coffee roasters' association said.
Japan, the world's third-biggest coffee importer after the US and Germany, purchased 235,835 tonnes of green coffee in the first seven months of this year, up 2.6 percent year-on-year, according to Finance Ministry statistics.
Japan's roasted coffee imports soared 60.2 percent to 2,096 tonnes in the same period.
"We expect Japanese coffee demand to mark a record high this year. Consumption was not affected by the economic slump," Masao Yamashita, executive director of the All Japan Coffee Association, said in a recent interview.
Yamashita attributed the surge in roasted coffee imports to the success of US-style specialty coffee shop chains such as Starbucks Corp and Tully's Coffee Corp. Lacking roasting plants in Japan, they import their beans from their US facilities.
The increase in green coffee imports -- used by domestic roasters to produce instant coffee, regular coffee and canned coffee drinks -- was thanks to the growth of home-use coffee, Yamashita said.
Coffee demand in Japan rose 5.5 percent year-on-year to a record 416,090 tonnes on a green-coffee basis last year.
Yamashita said per-capita consumption of coffee reached 3.17 kg a year last year, surpassing the 2.42kg consumed in Britain -- another country where people are traditionally tea-drinkers.
Japan's per-capita coffee consumption could match the 4.07kg a year savored by Americans and the 5.24kg drunk by continental Europeans, he said.
But growth will depend on roasters' ability to come up with new products to meet consumers' changing needs, he said.
Yamashita cited the success of disposable drip-filters -- small paper filters packed with coffee that allow people to make a single cup of freshly brewed coffee quickly and easily.
Better processing techniques have also raised the standard of instant coffee, helping consumption, he said. Instant coffee accounts for about 44 percent of overall Japanese consumption, while regular coffee makes up some 34 percent. Liquid coffee in cans or bottles accounts for the rest.
The lickety-split expansion of espresso coffee shop chains Starbucks and Tully's has been the hottest topic in Japan's coffee market in recent years, but their growth was achieved at the expense of traditional, individually owned coffee shops, Yamashita said.
Starbucks and Tully's Coffee Japan Co Ltd are now nipping at the heels of Doutor Coffee Co Ltd, Japan's largest coffee shop chain with 1,070 outlets.
"The number of traditional coffee shops has declined as they lose out to the self-service coffee shop chains," Yamashita said. "The growth of Doutor and Starbucks does not necessarily offset the decrease of traditional stores."
The number of Japan's coffee shops peaked in 1980 at 154,630. It has declined steadily since then and now stands at about 90,000.
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS