Arabica coffee bean farmers in Brazil have received quite a shock in the past few months. Their once prized crop has plummeted in value to just $106 for a 60kg bag. The startlingly low prices reflect an increase in popularity for newer and cheaper types of coffee, along with a dearth of eager consumers. Brazil's problems can be attributed to a number of reasons. First, the world's biggest coffee consumers (America, China, and Japan), have lost their interest in the popular morning beverage and growth in those key areas has been nonexistent. Secondly, countries that ARE seeing an increase in coffee sales are instead choosing to consume the cheaper robusta bean variety of coffee.
This increase in robusta's popularity has made it possible for countries like Vietnam to come into the global coffee market. Being a country that grows hardly any other types of coffee, Vietnam has been able to thrive and prosper despite arabica's failures in coffee sales. Brazilian farmers have also truly run out of options. Often too poor to afford to grow a new crop, the struggling farmers are left with an unmarketable crop. Further misfortunes become evident when recognizing Brazil's ironically fantastic year for coffee growth. High arabica prices in 2011 caused farmers to pour money into more acreage and crop. Now, two years later, farmers are left with a surplus of unwanted crops.
As I read this, I felt indifferent, almost delighted, by the fall of arabica coffee. Surely this meant that I would be seeing an increase in that wonderfully sugary Vietnamese coffee pumped full of condensed milk. But the realization that the failure of Brazil's failure to sell coffee was probably directly proportional to America's ability to receive slightly broke my heart. After all, Starbucks does use plenty of arabica beans for their incredibly addictive drinks. I start to wonder about how Brazil somehow lost a large majority of its American market. After all, 83% of American adults consume coffee. I had begun to think that America had grown dependent on the stuff. Coffee is as much a social beverage as is alcohol and yet we seem to have grown weary of it. Have all the articles spouting the dangers of coffee caught on?
Regardless of Brazil's failures to sell of America's failure to consume, coffee is ultimately an essential part of life for millions of drinkers around the world. Not only in my life, but in the lives of exhausted 2 a.m. procrastinators, the early bird shift worker, the late night employee, and the average 8 a.m. regular Joe, coffee acts as the stimulant for American productivity. The popular drink has long been, and always will be, an important part of not only the global farming industry, but America's lifestyle and culture.
For this commentary, I found that the insight gained in the last two paragraphs is proportional to the amount of background information you gave in the first two paragraphs. I have found that your commentaries either have a perfect balance of personal opinion and background information or an imbalance, with background information dominating the bulk of your commentary while there are only a few sentences that give insight to the topic. A way to improve upon this may simply be to see how much you have written for personal opinion and background information and compare them. I also like how you bring in your perspective as a coffee drinker, allowing me to feel like you have some authority on your topic. Overall, a good commentary.
ReplyDeleteWhen first reading your commentary, my initial thought was that you chose such a strange topic. In my opinion, there is not much to talk about, in depth, on the topic of coffee. Also, your reflection on the article should be more analytical on the content and perhaps structure of your article, not so much restating statistics and statements of the sort. Nevertheless, the end of your commentary went into more depth of your article and was written well overall.
ReplyDeleteI think you did a great job, Bryan! You succeeded in providing a well thought out commentary. I love how your sentences differ in variety and also how you used such a great amount of vocabulary words. Your last two paragraphs are very strong. I especially enjoyed your concluding paragraph.
ReplyDeleteThe only suggestions I would add are to provide more commentary than summary of the article. Also, might I suggest that you provide your insight on the structure of the article. For example, I found it very helpful that the author of the article you chose provided a graph of the coffee production in 2012 and 2013.
I think you did a great job, Bryan! You succeeded in providing a well thought out commentary. I love how your sentences differ in variety and also how you used such a great amount of vocabulary words. Your last two paragraphs are very strong. I especially enjoyed your concluding paragraph.
ReplyDeleteThe only suggestions I would add are to provide more commentary than summary of the article. Also, might I suggest that you provide your insight on the structure of the article. For example, I found it very helpful that the author of the article you chose provided a graph of the coffee production in 2012 and 2013.
As another typical student procrastinator who is addicted to coffee,I truly enjoyed reading your interesting article and commentary. Neverthless, I assumed that providing insightful comments to coffee would have been slightly demanding. Your structure and commentary are wonderful, but the portion of the summary is comparatively too big, regading that your opinion takes only about 2 paragraphs. Try topics that you could expand your thoughts more next time! Nontheless, I really loved your comment and article ! :)
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting and surprising that majority of coffee consumers have lost interest in Arabica coffee bean. People prefer Robusta coffee bean because of its cheaper price compared to the Arabica bean. Nevertheless, there is an old proverb that cheap items does its price. This means that even though the Robusta coffee bean might taste better, it’s not guarantee that it is also healthier than Arabica’s coffee. Therefore, people should care more about their health instead of consuming unhealthy beverages for its cheap price.
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